Phenotypic Distribution of Polygenic Traits and Allele Frequency for Introductory Biology John Brady and Travis Curry Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School Indianapolis IN Website:

Phenotypic Distribution of Polygenic Traits • Phenotype- Observable Traits • Examples: • Polygenic Trait- phenotype is dependent on alleles at many different genes • Examples:

Why Garlic Mustard?

• Abundant on campus • Invasive species • Relates to other content like populations, competition, biodiversity, evolution.

Environmental Literacy

“…the capacity of an individual to act successfully in daily life on a broad understanding of how people and societies relate to each other and to natural systems, and how they might do so sustainably.” http://www.fundee.org/facts/envlit/whatisenvlit.htm

N u m b e r

14 12

M u s t a r d o f G a r l i c P l a n t s

10 8 6 4 2 16

Height of Garlic Mustard Plants Collected at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, Demonstrating Normal Distribution

Ряд1 Полиномиальная (Ряд1) 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Height of Garlic Mustard Plants (cm)

140 160 180

Oh Deer: Allele Frequency “Mate or Die”

Background

• • • Project Wild “Oh Deer” activity : used to demonstrate competition for scarce resources limiting populations: Project Wild Illustration of variation leading to differential fitness success in a wild population Just add some alleles and mating and it is easy to demonstrate directional and stabilizing selection in a population.

0,8 0,7 0,6 0,5 0,4 0,3 0,2 0,1 0 0

Figure 1: Allelic frequency for the dominant "hobbling" mutation (N) and the recessive "normal" mutation (n) over nine generations of "Mate or Die"

1 2 3 4 5

Generations of "deer" Population

6 7 8 9 Frequency N Frequency n

Thank You!

• John Brady: [email protected]

• Travis Curry: [email protected]

• Website: http://tcurry1977.edublogs.org/