Question

In a large randomly mating population, only one person in 10, 000 is an albino. What will be the frequency of a carrier person of albinism?
a. 1 in 50
b. 99 in 10000
c. 2 in 10000
d. 1 in 100

Answer 1

Hint: Any hereditary absence of any pigment or color in a human being, animal or plant, which may result in white color hair, feathers, scales and skin and pink color eyes in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibian and fish and invertebrates as well is treated as the condition of Albinism. We can say that the written reports of albinistic animals can be problematic to authenticate since the varied use and clarification of the terms mean it.

Complete answer:
We can define the term Albinism as an autosomal recessive genetic disorder. This ailment has the ability to change the color of the organs in an organism. People state that the frequency of the victims who suffer from albino in a population is 1 in 10,000, i.e., 100001​ or 0.0001.
According to the law given by Hardy and Weinberg.
\[p^2 + q^2 + 2pq = 1\]

In the above equation, the \[p^2 \] and \[ q^2 \] are said to be the frequencies of homozygous dominant individuals and homozygous recessive individuals respectively. In addition, the \[2pq\] represents the frequency of the carrier. Here the letters p and q exist to represent the frequency of the dominant and recessive allele correspondingly.

Now, \[q^2 = 0.0001\]
$Q = 0.0001$
$​= 0.01$
Similarly, $p + q = 1$
Thus, $p = 0.99$
Hence, $2pq = 2 \times 0.01 \times 0.99$
$= 0.0198 \;or\; 0.02$
$= 2\%$
Therefore, 1 person in 50 will be a carrier of albinism.

Hence, the correct answer is option (A).

Note: The survivability of an animal can be reduced due to the state of Albinism. For example, it is said that due to the lack of defense from UV radiation and their lack of concealment to evade predators, the albino alligators have a regular survival span of only 24 hours. Thus, the organisms which are suffering from Albinism may have less span of life. They may also suffer from minor defects like lacking vision.