WELCOME TO EXHIBITION

NIGHT
Fidaa Janoudi

THE EVOLUTION OF POPULATIONS

In AP Biology, we began the year with a unit on
Evolution.
Broadly speaking, Evolution is the change of
populations over time.
If we are looking at the detailsmacroevolution
vs. microevolution.
This presentation is based on a virtual lab
performed in my AP Biology course that
examines Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION
How do populations change over time?
Essentially macroevolution vs. microevolution.

This assignment mainly focuses on microevolution;

changes in a population seen through a micro scale.

WHAT IS HARDY WEINBERG

EQUILIBRIUM?
G. H. Hardy and W. Weinberg discovered two
similar formulas that allow us to keep track of how
populations change over time.

Alleles are specific forms of genes.

Ex:

T and t. (Tall and Short)

T is the dominant allele and t is the recessive.

Allele frequencies are proportioned percentages

of all alleles in a population that sum up to 1.
Ex:

Allele frequency ratio 0.8 : 0.2.

WHAT IS HARDY WEINBERG

EQUILIBRIUM?

Genotypes are pairs of alleles that define specific

characteristics for an organism.
Ex:

T and t alleles form 3 different genotypes.

TT: homozygous dominant; tall completely
Tt: heterozygous dominant; organism is tall but
carries short allele
tt: homozygous recessive; short completely

Genotype frequencies are proportioned

percentages of all genotypes that all add up to 1.
Ex:

Genotype frequency ratio 0.64 : 0.32 : 0.04

WHAT IS HARDY WEINBERG

EQUILIBRIUM?

Image from Pearson Education AP Textbook

WHAT IS HARDY WEINBERG

EQUILIBRIUM?
First formula discovered

p+q=1

This formula was created to mainly calculate allele

frequencies, ideally numbers are rounded to the
nearest tenth. (0.2, 0.5, etc..)
p stands for the dominant allele frequency
q stands for the recessive allele frequency

WHAT IS HARDY WEINBERG

EQUILIBRIUM?
Second formula discovered

p + 2pq + q = 1

This formula was created to mainly calculate

genotype frequencies, ideally numbers are rounded
to the nearest hundredth. (0.34, 0.08, etc..)

p stands for the dominant allele frequency squared

2pq is the product of 2 times the quantity of both the
dominant and recessive genotype frequencies
q stands for the recessive allele frequency squared

FIVE CONDITIONS TO MAINTAIN

HARDY WEINBERG EQUILIBRIUM
1.
2.

3.
4.
5.

No natural selection.
All traits should aid equally in survival.
No gene flow.
Genetic frequencies should stay within their
own population.
Random mating.
No sexual selection should occur.
No mutations.
No genetic change should take place.
*Very large population*.
Genetic drift should not occur.

THE PROJECT
Design an experiment based on Hardy Weinberg
Equilibrium.
Experiments must answer a specific answer of
choice.
Populations are to be expressed and recorded
through some sort of spreadsheet.

MY EXPERIMENT
I wanted to see what happens with Hardy Weinberg
overtime with different population sizes.
Question: What effect does population size have on
allele frequencies over 10 generations?
Hypothesis: Allele frequencies will stay relatively
equal in a larger population compared to a
smaller one because the Hardy Weinberg theory
states that allele frequencies in a large
population dont change nearly as much as they
would in a smaller one.

EXPERIMENT DESIGN
Control group: Large population vs. relatively small population
Dependent Variable: Genotype frequencies
Independent Variable: Number of Individuals
I created 2 different populations, one of 25 individuals and one
of 2500. Their frequencies were recorded for ten constant
generations.
Both populations started out with a frequency of 0.5 for both P
and Q.
This can be seen on my Excel Spreadsheet.
Hardy Weinburg.xlsx

RESULTS

Part 1:
Generation 1:
A
2537

B
2455

P
Q
0.508213 0.491787

2470

2522

0.494792

0.505208

Generation 10:

Generation 10

Generation 1
2000

1500

1000

1000

500
1

Initial: P 0.5 Q 0.5

Population of 2500

RESULTS

Part 2:

Generation 10:

Generation 1:
A

26

26

52

0.230769

0.769231

Generation 1

Generation 10
40
20

Initial P 0.5 Q 0.5

Population of 25

CONCLUSION
The results for the small population seem quite
shocking, but they are true. In a small
population, anything could happen, gene
frequencies could change dramatically because
there is such little frequencies to mess with.
In larger populations, mistakes dont show much
because they are hidden. That creates extremely
slight changes in genetic frequencies. Exactly
what occurred with my population.

CONCLUSION
Connection to real world..
Cheetahs

are an endangered species as of right now.

In 1900, there were over 100,000 cheetahs across their
historic range. Today, an estimated 9,000 to 12,000
cheetahs remain in the wild in Africa (Defenders).
In the past few years, Cheetahs were so near to
extinction; their population was really small.
An allele was close to disappearing, as happened with
my population model.
This means that the population went through
something called the bottle neck effect.

This concludes that very small populations can

sometimes cause extinction.

ANSWER TO ESSENTIAL QUESTION

Populations change differently over time; usually
depend on the different scale of evolution.
This assignment says that in microevolution,
changes in a population depend on genetic allele and
genotype frequencies. Populations will change if
these frequencies change.
Ex:

In a small population, the Hardy Weinberg conditions

are not met, changing frequencies dramatically.

In macroevolution, changes in a population depend

on changes in fossils and overall changes in species;
phylogenetic trees and structures.
Ex:

Vestigial organ in whales, dorsal fins; whales used to

be land animals.

Thank You.
Any Questions?

SOURCES
AP Biology textbook, Pearson.
"Basic Facts About Cheetahs." Defenders of
Wildlife. Charity Navigator, 2015. Web. 04 Feb.
2015. <http://www.defenders.org/cheetah/basicfacts>.