Mining can create a lot of pollution that affects the fitness of organisms if it is not cleaned up.
The soil around an abandoned copper mine in Copperopolis, California contains heavy metal that
is toxic to many plants that live there. Despite this, some species have populations that live on
this toxic soil. Wright et al. (2015). wondered if natural selection had increased the frequency of
alleles that confer higher survival on soil contaminated by heavy metals. They found a locus
called Tol1 in the the wildflower Mimulus guttatus that is at higher frequency in mine
populations compared to populations living in nearby, uncontaminated soils. The Tol1+ allele
confers higher survival on contaminated soils compared to the Tol1- allele. To estimate the
fitness of the copper tolerant allele compared to the intolerant allele, they planted 100 individual
plants from each genotype (100 Tol1+/Tol1+; 100 Tol1+/Tol1-; 100 Tol1-/Tol1-). After one
growing season, they recorded the number of plants surviving until flowering. Their data on
number of plant surviving is given in the table below. Use these data to answer the questions in
this part. Note: the actual experimental details differ somewhat from that described here, but I
have simplified it for our purposes.
The average fitness, measured as survival to reproduction, of the plants in this experiment, is
Round your answer to nearest 0.001 .
Assume that you have a new mine population starting with a Tol1+ allele frequency of 0.739.
Using the fitness data from this experiment, the average fitness is The relative fitness of the
T0/1+/T0/1+ genotype is The relative fitness of the Tol1+/Tol1- genotype is The relative fitness
of the Tol1-/Tol1- genotype is The frequency of Tol1+ in the next generation would be Round
your answers to the nearest 0.001 ..
Mining can create a lot of pollution that affects the fitness of orga.pdf
1. Mining can create a lot of pollution that affects the fitness of organisms if it is not cleaned up.
The soil around an abandoned copper mine in Copperopolis, California contains heavy metal that
is toxic to many plants that live there. Despite this, some species have populations that live on
this toxic soil. Wright et al. (2015). wondered if natural selection had increased the frequency of
alleles that confer higher survival on soil contaminated by heavy metals. They found a locus
called Tol1 in the the wildflower Mimulus guttatus that is at higher frequency in mine
populations compared to populations living in nearby, uncontaminated soils. The Tol1+ allele
confers higher survival on contaminated soils compared to the Tol1- allele. To estimate the
fitness of the copper tolerant allele compared to the intolerant allele, they planted 100 individual
plants from each genotype (100 Tol1+/Tol1+; 100 Tol1+/Tol1-; 100 Tol1-/Tol1-). After one
growing season, they recorded the number of plants surviving until flowering. Their data on
number of plant surviving is given in the table below. Use these data to answer the questions in
this part. Note: the actual experimental details differ somewhat from that described here, but I
have simplified it for our purposes.
The average fitness, measured as survival to reproduction, of the plants in this experiment, is
Round your answer to nearest 0.001 .
Assume that you have a new mine population starting with a Tol1+ allele frequency of 0.739.
Using the fitness data from this experiment, the average fitness is The relative fitness of the
T0/1+/T0/1+ genotype is The relative fitness of the Tol1+/Tol1- genotype is The relative fitness
of the Tol1-/Tol1- genotype is The frequency of Tol1+ in the next generation would be Round
your answers to the nearest 0.001 .
