Assignment 2

Mendel’s laws of Inheritance and Pea plant experiment.

Inheritance can be defined as the process of how a child receives genetic information from
the parent. The whole process of heredity is dependent upon inheritance and it is the
reason that the offspring are similar to the parents. This simply means that due to
inheritance, the members of the same family possess similar characteristics.
This understanding of inheritance was made possible by a scientist named Gregor Mendel,
who formulated certain laws to understand inheritance known as Mendel’s laws of
inheritance.

Why was Pea Plant Selected for Mendel’s Experiments?

Mendel studied the law of inheritance in 1860 and conducted an experiment on pea plants.
He started cultivating pea plants and observed their inheritance pattern from one
generation to another. The observation leads to the discovery of three laws of inheritance
which are known as Mendel’s Law of Inheritance.
He selected a pea plant for his experiments for the following reasons:
1. The pea plant can be easily grown and maintained.
2. They are naturally self-pollinating but can also be cross-pollinated.
3. It is an annual plant, therefore, many generations can be studied within a short
period of time.
4. It has several contrasting characters.

Mendel began his investigation with a pair of pea plants with two contrasting traits, i.e., one
tall and another dwarf. He observed their pattern of inheritance. Similarly, he investigated
pairs of pea plants with one contrasting trait. Mendel studied these seven characters that
consist of contrasting traits:

 Stem height : Tall/Dwarf

 Seed shape : Round/Wrinkled
 Seed colour : Yellow/Green
 Pod colour : Yellow/Green
 Flower position : Terminal/Axial
 Flower colour : Violet/White
 Pod shape : Constricted/Inflated
Throughout his experiment, Mendel employed only true-breeding pea plants. This is
because a true breeding plant has a stable trait inheritance for several generations. In each
experiment, he observed a pattern of inheritance which set a framework for the law of
inheritance. He combined mathematics with this biological issue to make it more credible.
Later, based on the observations and conclusions made by Mendel, the relation between
inheritance, traits, and factors that are responsible for heredity was discovered.

Mendel conducted 2 main experiments to determine the laws of inheritance.

1. Monohybrid Cross
2. Dihybrid Cross
While experimenting, Mendel found that certain factors were always being transferred
down to the offspring in a stable way. Those factors are now called genes i.e. genes can be
called the units of inheritance.
Mendel’s Experiments
Mendel experimented on a pea plant and considered 7 main contrasting traits in the plants.
Then, he conducted both experiments to determine the inheritance laws. A brief
explanation of the two experiments is given below.
Monohybrid Cross
In this experiment, Mendel took two pea plants of opposite traits (one short and one tall)
and crossed them. He found the first generation offspring were tall and called it F1 progeny.
Then he crossed F1 progeny and obtained both tall and short plants in the ratio 3:1. Mendel
even conducted this experiment with other contrasting traits like green peas vs yellow peas,
round vs wrinkled, etc. In all the cases, he found that the results were similar. From this, he
formulated the laws of Segregation and Dominance.
Dihybrid Cross
In a dihybrid cross experiment, Mendel considered two traits, each having two alleles. He
crossed wrinkled-green seed and round-yellow seeds and observed that all the first
generation progeny (F1 progeny) were round-yellow. This meant that dominant traits were
the round shape and yellow colour.

Conclusions from Mendel’s Experiments

The genetic makeup of the plant is known as the genotype. On the contrary, the physical
appearance of the plant is known as phenotype.
The genes are transferred from parents to the offspring in pairs known as alleles.
During gametogenesis when the chromosomes are halved, there is a 50% chance of one of
the two alleles to fuse with the allele of the gamete of the other parent.
When the alleles are the same, they are known as homozygous alleles and when the alleles
are different they are known as heterozygous alleles.
Mendel’s laws
The two experiments lead to the formulation of Mendel’s laws known as laws of inheritance
which are:
1. Law of Dominance
2. Law of Independent Assortment
3. Law of Segregation

Law of Dominance
This is also called Mendel’s first law of inheritance. According to the law of dominance,
hybrid offspring will only inherit the dominant trait in the phenotype. The alleles that are
suppressed are called the recessive traits while the alleles that determine the trait are
known as the dominant traits.

Law of Independent Assortment

This is also known as Mendel’s second law of inheritance. This law of independent
assortment states that a pair of traits segregates independently of another pair during
gamete formation. As the individual heredity factors assort independently, different traits
get equal opportunity to occur together.

Law of Segregation
This is also known as Mendel’s third law of inheritance. This law of segregation states that
during the production of gametes, two copies of each hereditary factor segregate so that
offspring acquire one factor from each parent. In other words, allele (alternative form of the
gene) pairs segregate during the formation of gamete and re-unite randomly during
fertilization.