Trying to solve a Genetics problem.

[radamez]

Most worms have brown bodies, but members of the species that are homozyhous for the recessive allele 'y' have yellow bodies. However, if juvenile worms of pure 'YY' lines are reaered on food containing silver salts, the resulting adults are yellow. These are called "phenocopies", environmentally induced copies of genetically determined phenotypes. If you were presented with a single worm (*im just assuming the worm is an adult here*), how would you determine if it was a yellow genotype or a yellow phenotype ?

Im having a tough time decoding this problem. I.E. understanding it. And I'm guessing it IS an earthworm! And earthworms are hermaphroditic so you could theoretically breed it with itself and then see what the ratio of the babies would be

Can you prove the end result with a punette square ?

[terranrush]

Exactly, because it is hermaphroditic, you could observe its offspring from self-fertilization. If it is homozygous recessive, its offspring will be yellow regardless of what food you feed them (silver salts containing vs. normal). If it is a phenocopy, then when its offspring are reared in normal food (not containing silver salts) the phenotype will brown.