Joe is breeding cockroaches in his dorm room He finds that t

Joe is breeding cockroaches in his dorm room. He finds that the average wing length of the cockroaches is 4cm. He chooses 6 cockroaches with the longest wing length; the average wing length of the selected cockroaches is 10cm. Joe interbreeds these selected cockroaches. From earlier studies, he knows that the narrow-sense heritability for wing length in his population of cockroaches is 0.6 What should Joe expect the average wing length to be among the offspring of the selected cockroaches?

Solution

Your answer is 7.6 cm.

To solve this problem, first, try to calculate the response to selection R.

R= h² x S

S is the selection differential.

S = 10 cm – 4 cm = 6 cm

The narrow-sense heritability h² is 0.6

The response to selection R = (0.6) x (6 cm) = 3.6 cm.

What should be the average wing length of the progeny of the selected cockroaches = average wing length of the population +R = 4 cm + 3.6 cm = 7.6 cm.