Practice for complex inheritance problems
1. Oompah Loompahs can have red, purple, or blue hair. The allele that controls the trait is incompletely dominant, where purple hair is caused by the heterozygous condition. Show a “key” for the genotypes and phenotypes of hair color.
______= blue ______= red ______= purple
2. Orville Oompah has purple hair and is married to Opal Oompah who brags that she has the bluest hair in the valley. How many of Opal’s children will be able to brag about their blue hair also? How many will take after their father? SHOW YOUR WORK!
3. Olivia Oompah is married to Odo Oompah. Both of them have purple hair. They have 100 children. What is the hair color of their children and in what proportion? Show your work!
Red ______Blue ______Purple ______
4. In the land of Oompah Loompahs, blue hair is highly valued. Blue haired Oompahs get special benefits. Oscar Oompah has purple hair but he wants a wife that will give him children with blue hair.
What color hair should he look for in a wife?
If he can’t find this type of Oompah, what should be his second choice?
5. A new rose plant has been developed that has a flower that shows a codominance pattern. The flower has a red and yellow swirl pattern. The parents of this new plant were RR and YY. What is the genotype for this new rose plant? SHOW YOUR WORK! 6. If the new rose plant was crossed with another rose of the same genotype what would be the possible outcomes for their offspring? Show your work and the possibilities.
7. What offspring would occur if the heterozygous form of the rose plant (from question 5) were crossed with the red plant? Show your work!
The next several questions deal with multiple alleles.
8. A woman with type A blood is claiming that a man with type AB blood is the father of her child who is type B. Could this man be the father of the child? Show the possible crosses; remember that the woman can have type AA or AO genotypes. Assuming that he is the father, what must the mother’s genotype be?
9. A man with type AB blood is married to a woman with type O blood. They have two natural children and one adopted child. Jane has type A blood, Bobby has type B blood, and Grace has type O blood. Which child was adopted? SHOW YOUR WORK!
10. A woman with type A blood (heterozygous) is married to a type B person who is also heterozygous for that phenotype. What proportion of their children will have:
A blood ______B blood ______O blood ______AB blood ______