Who developed the Hardy-Weinberg law?
Q: Who developed the Hardy-Weinberg law?
A: The Hardy-Weinberg law was developed independently by an English mathematician, G.H. Hardy, and a German doctor, Wilhelm Weinberg.
Q: What is another name for the Hardy-Weinberg law?
A: The concept is also known as the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, Hardy–Weinberg theorem or Hardy–Weinberg principle.
Q: What does the law state?
A: The law states that the proportions of alleles of all genes in any population will remain the same unless perturbed (disturbed). That applies to all loci on all chromosomes in the population.
Q: What are some possible perturbations that can affect allele frequencies?
A: Possible perturbations are gene mutation, natural selection, small population size where random effects like genetic drift and inbreeding may occur, assortative mating instead of random mating and migration into or out of the population under study.
Q: How do changes in allele frequency occur?
A: Any systematic change in the frequency of alleles in a population must be due to the effect of one or more of these causes.
Q: Is balancing selection an example of a perturbation that leads to changes in allele frequencies?
A: No, balancing selection such as heterozygote advantage can lead to an equilibrium population with Hardy–Weinberg proportions without leading to any changes in allele frequencies.
