
In order for a population to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, or a non-evolving state, it must meet five major assumptions:
- No mutation. No new alleles are generated by mutation, nor are genes duplicated or deleted.
- Random mating. Organisms mate randomly with each other, with no preference for particular genotypes.
- No gene flow. Neither individuals nor their gametes (e.g., windborne pollen) enter or exit the population.
- Very large population size. The population should be effectively infinite in size.
- No natural selection. ...
What are the 5 assumptions of Hardy-Weinberg principle?
Therefore, the principle of Hardy and Weinberg requires 5 assumptions for explaining the equilibrium state of gene and genotype frequency, which are: (a) Individuals of each genotype must be as reproductively fit as those of any other genotype in the population; (b) The population must consist of an infinitely large number of individuals;
What is the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?
The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium principle is foundational to population genetics. It predicts genetic outcomes for populations that do not evolve. The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium principle is foundational to population genetics. It predicts genetic outcomes for populations that do not evolve. Menu Home 5 Conditions for Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium
What is the Hardy Weinberg principle in biology?
The Hardy–Weinberg Principle The Hardy – Weinberg principle relates allele frequencies to genotype frequencies in a randomly mating population. Imagine that you have a population with two alleles (A and B) that segregate at a single locus. The frequency of allele A is denoted by p and the frequency of allele B is denoted by q.
What is a genetic mutation in Hardy Weinberg equilibrium?
Genetic Mutation. One of the conditions that must be met for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is the absence of mutations in a population. Mutations are permanent changes in the gene sequence of DNA. These changes alter genes and alleles leading to genetic variation in a population.

What is the Hardy Weinberg principle?
The Hardy-Weinberg principle was developed by the mathematician Godfrey Hardy and physician Wilhelm Weinberg in the early 1900's. They constructed a model for predicting genotype and allele frequencies in a non-evolving population. This model is based on five main assumptions or conditions that must be met in order for a population to exist in genetic equilibrium. These five main conditions are as follows: 1 Mutations must not occur to introduce new alleles to the population. 2 No gene flow can occur to increase variability in the gene pool. 3 A very large population size is required to ensure allele frequency is not changed through genetic drift. 4 Mating must be random in the population. 5 Natural selection must not occur to alter gene frequencies.
What is the first condition that must be met for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?
The first condition that must be met for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is the lack of mutations in a population.
What is genetic equilibrium?
Also described as genetic equilibrium, this principle gives the genetic parameters for a population that is not evolving. In such a population, genetic variation and natural selection do not occur and the population does not experience changes in genotype and allele frequencies from generation to generation.
Why is a population of infinite size needed for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?
A very large population, one of infinite size, is required for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. This condition is needed in order to combat the impact of genetic drift. Genetic drift is described as a change in the allele frequencies of a population that occurs by chance and not by natural selection.
What is the third condition that must be met?
The third condition that must be met is the population size must be sufficient so that there is no genetic drift.
What is the principle of population genetics?
One of the most important principles of population genetics, the study of the genetic composition of and differences in populations, is the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium principle. Also described as genetic equilibrium, this principle gives the genetic parameters for a population that is not evolving.
Why did Hardy Weinberg use the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium Equation?
Weinberg also independently worked toward the same solution.The Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium Equation used the frequency of alleles to predict genotypes and track them over generations.
What does p2 mean in statistics?
Since p is the frequency of all dominant alleles ( A ), it counts all of the homozygous dominant individuals ( AA) and half of the heterozygous individuals ( A a). Likewise, since q is the frequency of all recessive alleles ( a ), it counts all of the homozygous recessive individuals ( aa) and half of the heterozygous individuals (A a ). Therefore, p 2 stands for all homozygous dominant individuals, q 2 stands for all homozygous recessive individuals, and 2pq is all heterozygous individuals in a population. Everything is set equal to 1 because all individuals in a population equals 100 percent. This equation can accurately determine whether or not evolution has occurred between generations and in which direction the population is heading.
Why did Hardy and Weinberg believe in natural selection?
Both Hardy and Weinberg understood that natural selection occurred because of small changes within the genes of the species. The focus of Hardy's and Weinberg's works was on very small changes at a gene level either due to chance or other circumstances that changed the gene pool of the population. The frequency at which certain alleles appeared ...
What is the horizontal axis of Hardy-Weinberg proportions?
Hardy–Weinberg proportions for two alleles: the horizontal axis shows the two allele frequencies p and q and the vertical axis shows the expected genotype frequencies. Each line shows one of the three possible genotypes.
How long did it take for Weinberg to publish his work?
It took 35 years before Weinberg's contributions were recognized.
Why is everything set to 1?
Everything is set equal to 1 because all individuals in a population equals 100 percent. This equation can accurately determine whether or not evolution has occurred between generations and in which direction the population is heading.
Who was the first person to link genetics and evolution?
Godfrey Hardy (1877-1947), an English mathematician, and Wilhelm Weinberg (1862-1937), a German physician, both found a way to link genetic probability and evolution in the early 20th century. Hardy and Weinberg independently worked on finding a mathematical equation to explain the link between genetic equilibrium and evolution in a population ...
What are the assumptions of Hardy and Weinberg?
Therefore, the principle of Hardy and Weinberg requires 5 assumptions for explaining the equilibrium state of gene and genotype frequency, which are: (a) Individuals of each genotype must be as reproductively fit as those of any other genotype in the population; ( b) The population must consist of an infinitely large number of individuals;
Which principle requires five assumptions for explaining the equilibrium state of gene and genotype frequency?
In this article we will discuss about the principle of Hardy and Weinberg which requires five assumptions for explaining the equilibrium state of gene and genotype frequency. It was the year 1908, when an English mathematician — G. H. Hardy — and a German physician, W. Weinberg independently discovered the principle concerned with the frequency ...
What is the equilibrium state of a Mendelian population?
This principle states that genotypes in a Mendelian population tend to establish an equilibrium with reference to each other and, at equilibrium, both allele and genotype frequencies remain constant from generation to generation. This equilibrium state occurs among diploid, sexually reproducing organisms with non-overlapping generation and in large, random, panmictic populations where no selection or other factors are present.
What happens when 1 – Q is substituted by p?
Now, if 1 – q is substituted by ‘p’ then all the relationship of the formula can be represented in terms of q which is:
When does p + q = 1 apply?
The above-mentioned equation p + q = 1 applies when only two autosomal alleles in a population occur at a given locus, but if the system includes more alleles, more symbols must be added to the equation.
Is human population always in equilibrium?
It is interesting to note that naturally- occurring human populations are not genotypically in equilibrium state i. e. human population does not always follow the Hardy- Weinberg principle.
Does dominance affect allele frequency?
In this regard it should be remembered that dominance and recessiveness of the alleles do not directly influence allele frequency and dominance alone does not make an allele occur more frequently in the population. If some phenotype has a selective advantage over another, dominance could indirectly influence allele frequency.
How does an equilibrium frequency change over time?
At an equilibrium, the allele frequency does not change over time. An equilibrium is stable if small perturbations lead back to it. It is unstable if small perturbations lead away, typically toward other, stable equilibria. Heritable fitness differences are expected to lead to evolutionary change in a population over time, driven by natural selection. In the case of underdominance, heterozygotes are expected to produce fewer offspring in the following generation, corresponding to the fitness disadvantage. According to the Hardy–Weinberg principle (random pairing of alleles), alleles that are rare in a population (low starting frequency) are most often paired with alleles of another type, resulting in a heterozygous genotype. Thus, underdominance is expected to result in a disadvantage of rare alleles, which tend to be removed from the population by natural selection. However, the same alleles can proceed to fixation in a population if they occur as homozygotes sufficiently often, which requires a high starting frequency. There is an unstable equilibrium frequency that divides these two regimes. The direction of selection in underdominance is thus opposite of the one in overdominance, which is characterized by a stable polymorphic equilibrium frequency (see Figure 2 ).
What is the graphic representation of the Hardy-Weinberg principle?
Graphical representation of the Hardy–Weinberg principle. The frequency of A alleles is denoted by p and the proportion of B alleles by q. AA homozygotes are represented by white, AB heterozygotes by gray, and BB homozygotes by gold. Shaded areas are proportional to the probability of observing each genotype.
What is the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?
Hardy–Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) is a null model of the relationship between allele and genotype frequencies, both within and between generations, under assumptions of no mutation, no migration, no selection, random mating, and infinite population size.
How is inbreeding quantified?
Inbreeding is quantified by the coefficient of inbreeding, which is defined as the probability of autozygosity. This coefficient may characterize an individual, or a population in general, in which case it is defined as the expectation that a random individual from the population is autozygous at a random locus. The coefficient of inbreeding is closely related to the coefficient of kinship, defined earlier for a pair of individuals as the probability that two alleles sampled at random from these individuals are IBD. It is easy to see that the coefficient of inbreeding for a person is the same as the kinship between its parents.
What is the Hardy-Weinberg principle?
Hardy, an English mathematician, and Wilhelm Weinberg, a German physician—independently worked out a mathematical relationship that related genotypes to allele frequencies called the Hardy-Weinberg principle, a crucial concept in population genetics. It predicts how gene frequencies will be inherited from generation to generation given a specific set of assumptions. When a population meets all the Hardy-Weinberg conditions, it is said to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE). Human populations do not meet all the conditions of HWE exactly, and their allele frequencies will change from one generation to the next, so the population evolves. How far a population deviates from HWE can be measured using the “goodness-of-fit” or chi-squared test (χ2) (See Box 12.4 ).
How to find the frequency of individuals with the AB genotype?
The frequency of individuals with the AB genotype is calculated by the probability that the sperm contains the A allele (0.6) times the probability that the egg contains the B allele (0.4), and the probability that the sperm contains the B allele (0.6) times the probability that the egg contains the A allele.
Which group of scientists focused on the effects of selection on single alleles of specific genes?
Experimentally, the main British group, led by E. B. Ford adopted a strict Mendelian reductionist approach, emphasizing largely the effects of selection on single alleles of specific genes (the evolution of industrial melanism in moths, the evolution of mimicry in African moth species, the evolution of seasonal polymorphisms in snails, etc.). The American geneticists, especially Dobzhansky and his school, concentrated more on problems of whole genotypes, such as speciation (Sturtevant) and chromosomal polymorphisms (Dobzhansky) in Drosophila.
How many copies of a gene are in a diploid?
Also recall that each individual is a diploid, carrying two copies (alleles) of each gene. Assume that the entire population only has two variants, or alleles, for a gene for pea color. Individuals that carry at least one Y allele have yellow coloration, while those who carry two copies of the y allele are green.
What is the use of the gene pool concept and the Hardy-Weinberg principle?
Use the gene pool concept and the Hardy-Weinberg principle to determine whether a population is evolving at a locus of interest
Do allele frequencies change from generation to generation?
allele frequencies will not change from one generation to the next (recall our definition of biological evolution), and
Is pea plant in H-W equilibrium?
We can see that this population of pea plants appears to be in H-W equilibrium, because the proportion of YY, Yy, and yy genotypes match the H-W predictions of p^2, 2pq, and q^2, respectively.

Overview
Deviations from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium
The seven assumptions underlying Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium are as follows:
• organisms are diploid
• only sexual reproduction occurs
• generations are nonoverlapping
• mating is random
Derivation
Consider a population of monoecious diploids, where each organism produces male and female gametes at equal frequency, and has two alleles at each gene locus. Organisms reproduce by random union of gametes (the "gene pool" population model). A locus in this population has two alleles, A and a, that occur with initial frequencies f0(A) = p and f0(a) = q, respectively. The allele frequenc…
Sex linkage
Where the A gene is sex linked, the heterogametic sex (e.g., mammalian males; avian females) have only one copy of the gene (and are termed hemizygous), while the homogametic sex (e.g., human females) have two copies. The genotype frequencies at equilibrium are p and q for the heterogametic sex but p , 2pq and q for the homogametic sex.
For example, in humans red–green colorblindness is an X-linked recessive trait. In western Euro…
Generalizations
The simple derivation above can be generalized for more than two alleles and polyploidy.
Consider an extra allele frequency, r. The two-allele case is the binomial expansion of (p + q) , and thus the three-allele case is the trinomial expansion of (p + q + r) .
Significance tests for deviation
Testing deviation from the HWP is generally performed using Pearson's chi-squared test, using the observed genotype frequencies obtained from the data and the expected genotype frequencies obtained using the HWP. For systems where there are large numbers of alleles, this may result in data with many empty possible genotypes and low genotype counts, because there are often not enough individuals present in the sample to adequately represent all genotype classes. If this is …
History
Mendelian genetics were rediscovered in 1900. However, it remained somewhat controversial for several years as it was not then known how it could cause continuous characteristics. Udny Yule (1902) argued against Mendelism because he thought that dominant alleles would increase in the population. The American William E. Castle (1903) showed that without selection, the genotype frequencies would remain stable. Karl Pearson (1903) found one equilibrium position with values …
Graphical representation
It is possible to represent the distribution of genotype frequencies for a bi-allelic locus within a population graphically using a de Finetti diagram. This uses a triangular plot (also known as trilinear, triaxial or ternary plot) to represent the distribution of the three genotype frequencies in relation to each other. It differs from many other such plots in that the direction of one of the axes has been re…