I had a room full of 666 cockroaches which included 24 albinos. These albinos were so scary looking that I squashed them with a heavy piece of metal over and over again until they were a pile of left over exoskeleton and fluid and let the remaining cockroaches breed. The next generation of these horrid little baby cockroaches totaled 13,485. Assuming that the allele for albinism is recessive and we are still in equilibrium, how many recessive alleles are there in the population. (round to the nearest WHOLE number... 1.234 rounds to 2... there is no such thing as .234 of an organism)

Number of albino cockroaches = 486 cockroaches

Explanation:

Assuming that the population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and that albinism is recessive, the Hardy-Weinberg equation is used to determine the frequencies ofnthe different alleles in the population

According to the Hardy-Weinberg equation : p² + 2pq + q² = 1

Also p + q = 1

Where p² is the frequency of cockroaches having similar alleles for the dominant trait;

2pq is the frequency of individuals with the heterozygous allele, while q² is the frequency of the individuals having similar allele the recessive trait, albinism.

q² = 24/666

q² = 0.036

Since, the frequency of albinism in the population 0.036, number of individuals with the recessive allele, that is albino cockroaches in the next generation is obtained by multiplying the frequency with the number of individuals in the next generation.

Number of albino cockroaches = 0.036 × 13485

Number of albino cockroaches = 486 cockroaches