Module 8 Lesson 1 - 1
Lesson 1 — The Gene Pool
Get Focused
Although the focus has been on how individuals inherit their genes, this course now shifts to remind you that each living organism, whether human, Amoeba, or pine tree, is part of a functioning population in nature. Individuals have no power to adapt or evolve, but populations have.
As a general rule, the more genetic variation (polymorphism) in a population, the better the chance of at least some individuals surviving if unfavourable environmental change occurs. The obvious conclusion, then, is that variation helps protect species from extinction.
However, how do biologists know how much variation exists in a population?
In this lesson, you will see how the Hardy-Weinberg Principle is used by biologists as a tool to determine whether allele frequencies are changing and, therefore, whether a population is evolving.
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to answer these three focusing questions:
- How do biologists describe quantitatively the variation within a population?
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What are the five conditions of Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium?
- What happens when conditions of HW Equilibrium are not met?
