True or False: The following example populations meet the basic requirements of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. a. A small, isolated population of seals living in a stable environment with no genetic mutations. b. A large population of fish where females mate with males based on size. c. A population of birds with no genetic mutations that often mate with members of neighboring bird populations. d. A large, isolated population of squirrels that lives in a stable environment, has no genetic mutations, and mates randomly. e. A large population of spiders that experiences immigration from a second nearby population.

Only option D is TRUE. The rest are FALSE.

Explanation:

In Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, there is virtually no change in the frequency of alleles and genotype, in a population, meaning there is a genetic equilibrium in that population which shows no real evolutionary change has occurred. According to the, several conditions must be met before such equilibrium can be said to occur in a population, these requirements or conditions are:

1. There must be an unrestricted random mating

2. Mutation that results in the change of gene is absent

3. The population size must be large enough

4. Absence of migration, i. e. no movement of members out of a population or into a population

5. No natural selection

Now let's take a at the example of populations given, stating whether they meet the above listed conditions or not

For option A, which is "A small, isolated population of seals living in a stable environment with no genetic mutations" this is False, a small population size of seals is more likely to have its allele frequencies changed by random fluctuations compared to a large population size of seals. This does not satisfy condition number 3 listed above.

Option B, "A large population of fish where females mate with males based on size" is False. It does not satisfy condition number 1 listed above. In this population example, there is restricted random mating.

Option C "A population of birds with no genetic mutations that often mate with members of neighboring bird populations" is False. It does not meet condition 4, because there is exchange of genes with other populations that might have different allele frequencies.

Option D "A large, isolated population of squirrels that lives in a stable environment, has no genetic mutations, and mates randomly" is True. This meets all conditions listed above.

Option E "A large population of spiders that experiences immigration from a second nearby population" is False. This does not meet condition 4.