Answer:
The correct answer is option a. 12%
Explanation:
Before answering the question, we need to know a few concepts.
Artificial selection is the selecting practice of a specific group of organisms in a population -that carry the traits of interest- to be the parents of the following generations.
Parental individuals carrying phenotypic values of interest are selected from the whole population. These parents interbreed, and a new generation is produced.
The selection differential, SD, is the difference between the mean value of the trait in the population (X₀) and the mean value of the parents, (Xs). So,
SD = Xs - X₀
Heritability in the strict sense, h², is the genetic component measure to which additive genetic variance contributes. The heritability might be used to determine how the population will respond to the selection done, R.
h² = R/SD
The response to selection (R) refers to the metric value gained from the cross between the selected parents. R can be calculated by multiplying the heritability h², with the selection differential, SD.
R = h²SD
R also equals the difference between the new generation phenotypic value (X₁) and the original population phenotypic value (X₀),
R = X₁ - X₀
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In the exposed example
To get the average oil content of seeds in the entire lab population, we should clear the following equation.
SD = Xs - X₀
But first, to get SD, we need to clear the equation R = h² SD
SD = R/h² = 0.16/0.8 = 0.2
X₀ = Xs - SD = 0.32 - 0.2 = 0.12
The estimated average oil content of seeds in the entire lab population is 12%.
