AP Biology 1.4 Evolution Drives the Diversity and Unity of Life

This question asks us about the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.

While it may sound like a merger between a couple of boy sleuths and a Hollywood agent...

...the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is actually a really important principle in evolution.

It states that from one generation to the next, the genetic variation in a population

will remain constant....under a few conditions.

Here's a mnemonic that'll help us remember what the conditions are for a Hardy-Weinberg population.

Large Maggie Moo Really Sleeps.

It stands for...Large, Mutations, Migration, Random-mating, Selection.

L for Large: The population is infinitely large... so A is true. We can cross that one off.

M for: mutations are not occurring. Nope, not in our answer choices.

M for: migration is not occurring in or out of the population. That one looks like D....but

let's make sure...

R for: random mating occurs...meaning B is true...cross that one off.

And S for: natural selection isn't occurring. We can cross off C, too.

Since we've gone through the entire mnemonic, it looks like migration should NOT occur for

the conditions of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. This makes a lot of sense, because if the

organisms in a population kept migrating and mating in and out of the population...

...it'd be really hard to keep equilibrium of the genetic variation in a population.

D's our answer. This answer explanation is now over, but we're

Hardly-Whining.