Question

How does the process of natural selection affect Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium? Explain. List other four factors that disturb the equilibrium.

Answer 1

Natural Selection:

• It is a process in which heritable variations help in the survival of an organism, enabling it to reproduce and give rise to a large number of offspring.
  
• There may be changes in the frequency of genes and alleles in future generations.
  
• It leads to the formation of new species.
  

Hardy-Weinberg law states that the allelic frequencies in a population are stable and stay constant from generation to generation.

Thus, natural selection is more inclined towards the variation whereas Hardy-Weinberg's law states that the frequency of a particular allele should be constant from generation to generation.

Other factors which affect Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium are:

1) Gene migration
2) Genetic drift
3) Mutations
4) Recombination