The Hardy-Weinberg principle (HWP) (also Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium or HWE) states that, under certain conditions, after one generation of random mating, the genotype frequencies at a single gene (or locus) will become fixed at a particular equilibrium value. It also specifies that those equilibrium frequencies can be represented as a simple function of the allele frequencies at that locus. In the simplest case of a single locus with two alleles A and a with allele frequencies of p and q, respectively, the HWP predicts that the genotypic frequencies for the AA homozygote to be p2, the Aa heterozygote to be 2pq and the other aa homozygote to be q2.
The Hardy-Weinberg principle is an expression of the notion of a population in "genetic equilibrium" and is a basic principle of population genetics. First formulated independently in 1908 by English mathematician G. H. Hardy and German physician Wilhelm Weinberg the original assumptions for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) were that populations are:
- diploid
- sexually reproducing
- randomly mating
Derivation of the Hardy-Weinberg principle
A more statistical description for the HWP, is that the alleles for the next generation for any given individual are chosen independently. Consider two alleles, A and a, with frequencies p and q, respectively, in the population then the different ways to form new genotypes can be derived using a Punnett square, where the size of each cell is proportional to the fraction of each genotypes in the next generation:
Females | |||
---|---|---|---|
A (p) | a (q) | ||
Males | A (p) | AA (p2) | Aa (pq) |
a (q) | aA (qp) | aa (q2) |
So the final three possible genotype frequencies, in the offspring, if the alleles are drawn independently become:
- p2 (AA)
- 2pq (Aa)
- q2 (aa)
- 2pipj if i≠j and;
- pi2 if i=j.