Biology 9700 · AS & A Level · Passage of information from parents to offspring

Passage of information from parents to offspring — practice question

Mammals like sheep, $Ovis\ aries$, and goats, $Capra\ hircus$, are significant farm animals and are sometimes reared together in mixed flocks. Very rarely, live young are produced when a male sheep mates with a female goat. Sheep have $2n = 54$ and goats have $2n = 60$.
(a(i))[1]

Calculate the diploid chromosome number of the hybrid offspring from a sheep and a goat.

(a(ii))[1]

Outline why the classification of sheep and goats indicates that hybridisation between them is unlikely to happen.

(b)[4]

A cross between a white hornless goat and a bezoar horned goat gave offspring with four distinct phenotypes. Draw a genetic diagram to display the genotypes of the two parents, their gametes and the genotypes and phenotypes of the offspring.

(c(i))[1]

Horns on farm animals such as goats and cattle can pose a risk to the farmer and to other animals. Horn growth is often stopped in 5-day-old animals by a stressful process called disbudding. Genetic modification can create a deletion in the allele $h$ coding for horns in cattle embryos, so that the allele no longer codes for a functional protein and the embryos develop into hornless cattle. State an ethical advantage of this example of genetic modification.

(c(ii))[1]

Suggest why genetic modification that causes a deletion in the horned allele, in established breeds of dairy cattle, is preferable to selective breeding for hornless animals.

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