Genetic Variation Lab Report

During this past week, we covered chapter 2.3, which included topics such as Hardy-Weinberg. Allele frequency, and adaptive evolution. I learned more about microevolution which is a change in allele frequencies in populations over generations on a very small scale. We typically see microevolution during our lifetime, with its main causes being genetic drift, gene flow, and natural selection. Furthermore, we discussed and covered genetic variation among individuals. Genetic variation can be seen within all species, we can the variation both in phenotypic and genotypic variations. Examples of phenotypic variation in populations can range from height to hair color. Phenotypic variations are those that can be observed. A genotypic variation (gene

To elaborate, to understand the Hardy-Weinberg concept, comprehension of the basics is crucial. Defining population and gene pool are essential to the comprehension of the Hardy-Weinberg equation. A population is a group of interbreeding individuals in the same area that produces offspring. A gene pool is all the copies of every type of allele in all the locus and in every individual organism of a population. We can also determine if a population is not evolving if the allele and genotypic frequencies remain the same over the course of several generations. This type of occurrence in a population is called the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The main conditions for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium are for there to be no mutations, random mating, no natural selection, extremely large population size, and no gene flow. Any deviation from these stated conditions may result in evolution in one way or

In natural selection, if there is a consistency in favoring certain alleles over other alleles, a process called adaptive evolution will occur. This process can increase the frequency of alleles that benefit survival and reproduction. Another process that can alter the allele frequency is genetic drift, which is when allele frequencies change over generations because of chance. Two examples of genetic drift can be caused by the founder effect and the bottleneck effect. The founder effect is when a group of a large population is isolated from that population to establish a new population. The other effect is the bottleneck effect, in which is when a sudden event that harms the population drastically reduces the population size. The last main cause for a change in allele frequencies comes from gene flow. Gene flow, which is the transfer of alleles from one population to