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Miscellaneous
evolution sim
evolution sim In this simulation a partner and I used the program Evolve to find out the effects of various variables on the survival rate of both alleles and genotypes. The first variable we looked at was natural selection, or when one species has an advantage to the others. When we change the number of offspring produced by the homozygous diamond genotype the population increases in number dramatically. While the other genotypes slowly decrease in number, homozygous bullet even dies off, going extinct. The next simulation we had to run was on disease, we had to find out if Huntington's disease carriers should be prevented from having children. Huntington's is a homozygous dominant genotype, this means not only do the homozygous individuals have the disease but so do the heterozygous individuals. The disease kills the individual after some time but the individual has time to reproduce and have offspring, spreading the disease. So when the simulation is run the survival rate of carrier individuals is greatly reduced when compared to that of non-carriers. Also the reproductive rates are close to the same except the non-carrier has a little bit of an advantage. When the simulation is run the homozygous dominant genotype goes to extinction first, after about five generations. The heterozygous genotype gets near extinction but doesn't actually die off after about 13 generations. The reason for this is the offspring of the homozygous dominant have a good chance of having the disease. The allele for Huntington's disease also died off after six generations. This shows us what happens when individuals with Huntington's do reproduce. To show what happens when individuals with Huntington's are not allowed to reproduce. We set the reproductive rate of the carriers to zero. In this particular simulation the homozygous dominant died off after one generation and the heterozygous individuals dies off in seven generations. The allele for the disease is eliminated after three generations. In conclusion even though not letting carriers reproduce would get rid of the disease quicker I doubt it would work because no one has the right to tell another if they can reproduce or not. In the next problem we worked on we had to find out what would happen if the allele for Huntington's was recessive and not dominant. Would this effect how quickly the allele is eliminated? As it turns out, yes it does effect how quickly the allele is eliminated. Our original hypothesis was the allele would die off at a slower rate because the disease did not affect the carriers; they were simply carriers, passing their alleles to the next generation. To do this we set survival rate and reproductive rate opposite that of our first trial, we did this to show the disease affects the recessive and not the dominant. This hypothesis was correct, it took approximately 47 generations for the homozygous recessive to hit zero. The heterozygous genotype was never eliminated this is because the heterozygous individuals weren't effected by the disease they just passed it on to their children. Also in this particular situation the allele for Huntington's disease is never eliminated. This is because since the disease doesn't affect the heterozygous genotypes they will always reproduce and spread the disease further. When the gene for the disease is dominant the allele is eventually eliminated. But when the disease is recessive it is near impossible for the allele to be completely eliminated because the disease doesn't affect the heterozygous individuals, there for they reproduce and live as someone who does not have the disease allele at all. Bibliography: self research
Word Count: 591
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