North American wolves can have gray fur or black fur. A single gene with two alleles codes for fur color. Information about the fur color of parents and offspring in four wolf families is shown below.

Question

Family
1 | gray fur x black fur | 3 gray fur : 2 black fur
2 | gray fur x black fur | 0 gray fur : 5 black fur
3 | black fur x black fur | 1 gray fur : 3 black fur
4 | gray fur x gray fur | 4 gray fur : 0 black fur

a. Identify the most likely inheritance pattern (dominant-recessive, incomplete dominance, codominance, sex-linked, polygenic, multiple alleles) for fur color in wolves.

b. Explain how the information about family 3 supports the inheritance pattern you identified in part (a).

Answer 1

and, your teacher is just to easy. I will be happy to critique your work (and thinking). Look at the population proportions...

Answer 2

The answer to a is given in the question stem in b.

Answer 3

But family 4 is actually the family that supports the correct answer choice.

Answer 4

Comparing families 1 and 2 allows us to make a hypothesis that it is a case of dominant/recessive, which can be confirmed with families three and four.
Feel free to propose a scenario for discussion.

Answer 5

2 | gray fur x black fur | 2 gray fur : 3 black fur. <==== thought I saw this as part of the answer stem.

Answer 6

Oh, and the black fur and grey fur were switched in the P1 generation. (i.e., male and female and female and male fur cross differed than that of family 1).