ShmoopTube

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Here's an unshmoopy question for ya.

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Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium requires that a population meet all of the following criteria

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EXCEPT... what? And here are the potential answers...

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EXCEPT. Make sure you've read the question carefully because that EXCEPT word always

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comes back and bites us.

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This question asks us about the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.

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

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

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

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

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

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Large Maggie Moo Really Sleeps.

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

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

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

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

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let's make sure...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Hardly-Whining.

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