Moritz Lecture 3 Notes – page 1 Biology 1B—Evolution Lecture 3 (March 1, 2010), Neodarwinian Synthesis After On the Origin… When Darwin and Wallace jointly published their paper on natural selection, they began a new era of evolutionary study. While their work was important, they were still wrong about inheritance, a process which they believed was the result of blending of traits. Mendel’s Principles • Alternative forms of genes, known as alleles, account for variation • Offspring individuals inherit two copies of parents’ DNA in most cases (these are known as diploid organisms) • If the possible alleles of a gene differ, one may be dominant (meaning that it would mask the phenotypic expression of the other allele) • Two alleles for a heritable trait segregate during meiosis, usually independently of other traits (except for case of linked genes, which are close together on the chromosome) • Dominant alleles mask all other phenotypes (known as recessive), but there is also the case of co-dominance—think of one red and one white flower making a pink flower, or look at the examples belowMoritz Lecture 3 Notes – page 2 Figure 14.10 (pg. 272, 8th edition) Figure 14.5 (pg. 266, 8th edition) Alleles Genotypes Possible Phenotypes A AA Dominant AB Codominant Dominant B BB Recessive In this case, AA and BB are known as homozygous (same allele type) and AB is known as heterozygous. Examples of recessive traits in humans: Albinism, cystic fibrosis Examples of dominant traits in humans: achondroplasia (one form of Dwarfism), Huntington’s chorea Example of codominant trait in humans: Sick-cell anemia Population Genetics • A population, in genetic terms, is a randomly breeding group of individuals that is largely isolated from others • Key evolutionary processes: mutation (the only source of variation), sampling processes (also known as genetic drift), the various forms of natural selection, exchange of genes through migration, and non-random matingMoritz Lecture 3 Notes – page 3 Mathematical Models—Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium Example of a natural population of flowers: Figure 23.7 (pg. 474, 8th edition) Now, the general case: Phenotype Frequency Genotype Frequency Red Flowers 320 CRCR 0.64 Pink Flowers 160 CRCW 0.32 White Flowers 20 CWCW 0.04 Allele Frequency p=f(CR)=0.8 q=f(CW)=0.2 Expected proportions: p2+2pq+q2=1 Also, p+q=1 because there are only two possible alleles f(A1) = p2+1/2(2pq) = p(p+q) = p, meaning that the next generation will in theory have the same gene frequency as that of the parentsMoritz Lecture 3 Notes – page 4 Conclusions from Hardy-Weinberg math: Inheritance alone does not cause the frequency of alleles to change between generations (better known as evolution) This is because Hardy-Weinberg acts on these assumptions: • Random mating only for this gene/trait • No mutation or selection on population in question • This is an isolated population with no gene flow from outside (i.e. no migration) • This is only true for a large population with no sampling error Based on these assumptions, we can call Hardy-Weinberg a null hypothesis for evolution. That means that if a population does not conform to Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium for a certain trait, then evolution has occurred. Example of HWE as a Null Hypothesis: Wild Oats— Genotype Frequency 0.548 A1A1 0.071 A1A2 0.381 A2A2 Note that there are far fewer heterozygotes than HWE would predict. Some explanations for this would be that the wild oats do not practice non-random mating, or that heterozygotes are selected against in the environment the oats
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