Toothpick Fish Lab Response

Twelve fish moved into a pond, bringing along twenty-four alleles for scale color: eight green, eight red, and eight yellow. Out of the fish, most fish were green, because green is the dominant allele. In the pond history (before the environmental disaster), 57.7% (26/45) of the fish was green. That is more than half of the fish. In twelve fish, there could be a maximum of eight green fish and a minimum of four green fish. Eight green fish can be achieved with all green fish being heterozygous, and four green fish can be achieved by all green fish being homozygous. After green fish, orange fish were the most populous. 28.8% (13/45) of the fish in the history of the pond were orange. In twelve fish, there could be a maximum of eight orange fish and a minimum of zero. Eight orange fish can be achieved by having all red alleles pair up with a yellow allele, and there could have been zero orange fish if no red alleles pair up with a yellow allele. Red and yellow alleles are incompletely dominant (orange) and are recessive to green alleles. There could be a maximum of four red/yellow fish if all fish are homozygous and there could be a minimum of zero red/yellow fish if each red allele pairs up with a yellow allele or if some red/yellow alleles are paired with green alleles. Now, there weren't always twelve fish after the first generation, because in the first generation, there was a yellow fish. That fish couldn't hide well in the green algae and was eaten. The population dropped to eleven for future generations, but luckily, the second and third generations had no yellow fish, so the fish count stayed at eleven. In the fourth generation, though, the environment changed due to a disaster and the green fish were now having trouble hiding. Six green fish (54% of total fish) died because of that, bringing the fish total to five. Green alleles were completely wiped out because green alleles are dominant and if a green allele is present, the fish will be green. In the end, five fish survived: one red, three orange, and one yellow.

The lab can be changed in many ways. The habitat can be different. It can first be rocky, where all of the green fish are eaten, then in the algae that grows back, maybe only green fish can hide well. Then the remaining fish would die, too, and the population would go to zero. then the animal that eats the fish would die, too, and the organism that the fish eats would rise in population. There might be no disaster, but the homozygous green fish might have a 50% chance of carrying a disease that makes them slow, so half of the homozygous green fish might be eaten. There wouldn't be as many green fish as there was (but some homozygous and heterozygous green fish might survive). no matter how you change the lab, the end result will always be different.