Question

Consider a single gene in some species. in the entire species, we find that this gene has four alleles. for this one gene, the species would have _____ possible genotypes.

Answer 1

For this one gene with four alleles, the species would have 10 possible genotypes.

This occurrence is called multiple alleles. The important thing is that there may be multiple alleles within the population, but individuals have only two of those alleles (one from mother one from father).

Calculation of possible genotypes:

Genotypes = n * n+1 / 2