The eugenic movement was created in the early 20th century by Sir Francis Galton. Its aim was to improve the genetic pool of the human population by selective breeding. One idea was to discourage individuals with Mendelian autosomal recessive diseases to have children. However, the fallacy of this idea is shown by the fact that recessive lethal alleles (that are never found in homozygosity) can persist in populations for hundreds to thousands of generations. Which one of the following statements best explains the persistence of those alleles in populations?     There is heterozygote advantage in those populations.     Recessive alleles keep being produced by mutation.     Recessive alleles cannot be selected against when present in heterozygotes.     Genetic drift keeps recessive alleles at a relative high frequency in populations.

Human Heredity: Principles and Issues (MindTap Course List)
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Author:Michael Cummings
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Chapter10: From Proteins To Phenotypes
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The eugenic movement was created in the early 20th century by Sir Francis Galton. Its aim was to improve the genetic pool of the human population by selective breeding. One idea was to discourage individuals with Mendelian autosomal recessive diseases to have children. However, the fallacy of this idea is shown by the fact that recessive lethal alleles (that are never found in homozygosity) can persist in populations for hundreds to thousands of generations. Which one of the following statements best explains the persistence of those alleles in populations?

   

There is heterozygote advantage in those populations.

   

Recessive alleles keep being produced by mutation.

   

Recessive alleles cannot be selected against when present in heterozygotes.

   

Genetic drift keeps recessive alleles at a relative high frequency in populations.

 

 

Consider the action of mutation and of genetic drift in a population. What do you expect genetic variation will be in a very large population when it reaches mutation-drift equilibrium?

   

Genetic variation will be kept constant over the generations until it reaches equilibrium

   

Genetic variation will be low

   

Genetic variation will be high

   

Due to the random nature of both mutation and genetic drift, it is not possible to predict the evolution of genetic variation until equilibrium.  

 

 

 

Twenty five men and twenty five women establish a colony on a remote island. The population size remains the same size generation after generation. After 50 generations, how would the frequency of a recessive trait that does not affect fitness compare to the initial frequency (first generation)? Choose the best statement.

   

There would be a considerable increase in the frequency of the recessive trait due to bottleneck effects.

   

There would be a considerable increase in the frequency of the recessive trait due to the constant small population size

   

There would be a considerable increase in the frequency of the recessive trait due to inbreeding.

   

There would be a considerable increase in the frequency of the recessive trait due to founder effects.

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