Hardy Weinberg Principle

To solve the problem of finding how many individuals are heterozygous for the capsaicin tasting gene, we need to utilize the Hardy-Weinberg principle. This principle states that allele and genotype frequencies in a population will remain constant from generation to generation in the absence of other evolutionary influences. The equation is given by:

Where:

• = frequency of the homozygous dominant genotype (tasters, PP)
• = frequency of the heterozygous genotype (tasters, Pp)
• = frequency of the homozygous recessive genotype (nontasters, pp)

The question states that there are 64 nontasters among 400 individuals. Thus, .

To find , we take the square root of :

Since , we find .

Now, using the allele frequencies, we can calculate the heterozygous genotype frequency, :

Therefore, the number of heterozygous individuals in the population is:

Thus, there are 192 individuals who are heterozygous for the capsaicin tasting gene, making the correct answer:

192