Population Genetics: Diversity Within Versus Among Populations

Name
Date

Lyndsae Vine

20 September 2016

Put the answers for questions 1-3 in a single table

1.What are the allele frequencies (p and q) for each species and population?
2. What are the HS values for each population?
3. What are the Ht, average Hs, and Fst values for each species?
4. How will you allocate your scarce funds for wetland acquisition? Specifically, which 4
populations will you conserve? Justify your decision in terms of preserving the maximum
amount of genetic diversity that characterizes these two species.

I would conserve Orchis polyzymus populations 1, 2, and 3 and Orchis isozymus

population 2 based on the expected heterozygosity values (Hs) for each
species. In other words, the higher the probability that an individual will be
heterozygous at a given locus, the more diverse that population will be; that is,
the higher the value of Hs, the more genetic diversity there is within the
population.
We can conclude which species is more diverse based on the corresponding
values of Fst. For O. isozymus, Fst=.27 which is greater than .1, thus indicating
great divergence between populations of O. isozymus. For O. polyzymus,
Fst=.007 which is less than .01, thus indicating little divergence between
populations of O. polyzymus. In conclusion, populations of O. isozymus are
more divergent than populations of O. polyzymus, thus O. polyzymus is more
diverse and the flow of alleles is shared among populations of O. polyzymus.
5. What are at least potential causes for the different genetic structures you have observed
int eh two species? Think about the causes of evolution.

The populations of O. isozymus are said to highly divergent. The underlying

cause of this population subdivision could be geographic barriers restricting
gene flow followed by genetic drift and mutations within the subpopulations.
Because of genetic drift, the variance between small subpopulations increases
over time, that is, they will diverge, especially if they become isolated, and a
loss of genetic variation and a reduction in heterozygosity will occur.
Furthermore, inbreeding would be prevalent in this situation which reduces
heterozygosity even more, thus decreasing genetic diversity. Natural selection
is another element acting on the populations, but it can only act on variation
that mutation provides.