Complete question:
Now you are ready for your first major assignment. Your colleagues are investigating a newly seized tusk and wonder if the tusk is from a recently discovered crime where 10 elephants from the same population were found dead with their tusks removed. The genotype of the seized tusk for five short tandem repeat (STR) loci is shown in Table 1. Allele names for each of the STR loci correspond to their size in base pairs (bp). Table 2 lists the genotypes of the same five STR loci for 10 recently slaughtered elephants.
Did the seized tusk come from one of the recently slaughtered elephants? ________ What evidence supports your finding?
Note: You will find the tables in the attached files
Answer:
Probably the seized tusk belonged to elephant number eight.
Explanation:
Potentially, the seized tusk might belong to individual number eight. In both the tusk and the elephant, the genetic analysis resulted in the same-sized alleles for each locus.
The fact that, among the ten individuals of the population, only the individual number 8 matches the tusk for SRT loci, suggests that it belongs to the animal, but it does not ensure it 100%.
