GUWS Medical

Duck Feather Patterns

An example of multiple alleles is seen at a locus that determines the feather pattern of mallard ducks. One allele, M, produces the wild-type mallard pattern. A second allele, MR, produces a different pattern called restricted, and a third allele, md, produces a pattern termed dusky. In this allelic series, restricted is dominant over mallard and dusky, and mallard is dominant over dusky: MR > M > md. The six genotypes possible with these three alleles and their resulting phenotypes are: