AP Biology - Advanced Genetics problems
Complete the following problems: Show all work including Punnett squares in your notebook!
1. A rooster with blue (actually gray) feathers is mated with a hen of the same phenotype. Among their
offspring, 15 chicks are blue, 6 are black, and 8 are white.
a) What is the simplest explanation for the inheritance of these colors in chickens? (codominance or
incomplete dominance?)
b) What offspring would you predict from the mating of a blue rooster and a black hen?
2. The chart shows the results from several matings between different tribbles. (The little fuzzball
pictured...not real!)
a. Which crosses (#?) are examples of complete dominance?
b. Which crosses (#?) are examples of incomplete dominance?
c. Two blue tribbles mate and produce offspring that include white tribbles. What are the
genotypes of each of the parents?
d. If two orange tribbles mate, how many of the 852 offspring would you expect to be
yellow? Show your work.
e. A special investigation was conducted to determine the identity of the parents of an
abandoned litter of tribbles. The litter included blue, purple, green, and orange tribbles. What are the
phenotypes and genotypes of the parents? (Hint: Work backwards like on the previous worksheet)
3. Tribbles can be spotted (color against a white background) or solid color. The spotted allele is dominant to
the solid color allele.
a. When two spotted tribbles were mated, 45 spotted tribbles and 15 solid-colored tribbles were
produced. How many of the spotted tribble offspring would you expect to be heterozygous? Show
your work.
b. Two red spotted tribbles were mated. Each tribble had a black solid colored parent. How many of
the 5,280 offspring would you expect to be black, solid-colored? Show your work.
4. Multiple alleles control the coat color of rabbits. A gray color is produced by the dominant allele C. The
Cch allele produces a silver-gray color when present in the homozygous condition, CchCch, called chinchilla.
When Cch is present with a recessive gene, a light silver-gray color is produced. The allele Ch is recessive to
both the full color allele and the chinchilla allele. The Ch allele produces a white color with black extremities.
This coloration pattern is called Himalayan. An allele Ca is recessive to all the other alleles. The Ca allele
results in a lack of pigment, called albino. The dominance hierarchy is C > Cch > Ch > Ca. The table on the
next page provides the possible genotypes and phenotypes for coat color in rabbits. Notice that four genotypes
can possibly cause a full color rabbit. but only genotype results in an albino rabbit.
Phenotypes Genotypes
Full color CC, CCch, CCh, CCa
Chinchilla CchCch
Light gray CchCh, CchCa
Himalaya ChCh, ChCa
Albino CaCa
a) Indicate the genotypes and phenotypes of the F1 generation from the mating of a heterozygous Himalayan
coat rabbit with an albino coat rabbit.
b) The mating of a full color rabbit with a light gray rabbit produces two full color offspring, one light gray
offspring, and one albino offspring. Indicate the genotypes of the parents.
5. Blood typing has often been used as evidence in paternity
cases, when the blood type of the mother and child may
indicate that a man alleged to be the father could not possibly
have fathered the child. For the following mother and child
combinations, indicate which blood groups of potential
fathers would be exonerated (meaning they cannot be the
father).
6. A man with group B blood marries a woman with group B
blood. Their child has group O blood. What are the genotypes of these individuals? What other genotypes,
and in what frequencies, would you expect in offspring form this marriage?
7. Color pattern in a species of duck is determined by a single pair of genes with three alleles. Alleles H and I
are codominant, and allele i is recessive to both. How many phenotypes are possible in a flock of ducks that
contains all the possible combinations of these three alleles?
8. Imagine that a newly discovered, recessively inherited disease is only expressed in individuals with group
O blood, although the disease and blood group are independently inherited. A normal man with A blood and a
normal woman with B blood have already had one child with the disease. The woman is now pregnant for a
second time. What is the probability that the second child will also have the disease? Assume the parents are
heterozygous for the “disease” gene. Show your work.
9. Match the description/example with the correct pattern of inheritance.
A. Epistasis B. Pleiotropy C. Polygenic Inheritance
______ Single gene with multiple effects
______ Gene at 1 locus alters the phenotypic expression of a second gene
______ Several genes determine one phenotype
______ Sickle-cell anemia
______ Coat color in mice and rodents
______ Skin color in humans
______ Height in humans
10. In guinea pigs, the gene for production of melanin is epistatic to the gene for the deposition of melanin.
The dominant allele M causes melanin to be produced; mm individuals cannot produce the pigment. The
dominant allele B causes the deposition of a lot of pigment and produces a black guinea pig, whereas only a
small amount of pigment is laid down in bb animals, producing a light-brown color. Without an M allele, no
pigment is produced so the allele B has no effect and the guinea pig is white. A homozygous black guinea pig
is crossed with a homozygous recessive white: MMBB x mmbb. Give the phenotypes of the F1 and F2
generations.
11. The height of spike weed is a result of polygenic inheritance involving three genes, each of which can
contribute 5 cm to the plant. The base height of the weed is 10 cm, and the tallest plant can reach 40 cm. If a
tall plant (AABBCC) is crossed with a base-height plant (aabbcc), what is the height of the F1 plants? Show
your work. How many phenotypic classes will there be in the F2? List them.
12. In tigers, a recessive allele that is pleiotropic causes a white tiger and a cross-eyed condition. If two
phenotypically normal tigers that are heterozygous at this locus are mated, what percentage of their offspring
will be cross-eyed? What percentage of the cross-eyed tigers will also be white?
13.
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