The Hardy-Weinberg Principle predicts allele frequencies won't change

The Hardy-Weinberg principle is a mathematical model. It predicts that the frequencies of alleles in a population won't change from one generation to the next.
But this prediction is only true under certain conditions - it has to be a large population where there's no immigration, emigration, mutations or natural selection. There also needs to be random mating - all possible genotype can breed with all others
The Hardy-Weinberg equations can be used to calculate the frequency of particular alleles, genotypes and phenotypes.
The equations can also be used to test whether or not the Hardy-Weinberg principle applies to particular alleles in particular populations, i.e. to test whether selection or any other factors are influencing allele frequencies - if frequencies do change between generations in a large population then there is an influence of some kind.

	Created by Lucy Nove almost 8 years ago

A2 Biology (Populations and Evolution) Note on The Hardy-Weiberg Principle, created by Lucy Nove on 02/02/2017.

The Hardy-Weiberg Principle