Law of Independent Assortment: Mendel’s law of independent assortment states that genes do not influence each other with regard to the sorting of alleles into gametes: every possible combination of alleles for every gene is equally likely to occur. The independent assortment of genes can be illustrated by the dihybrid cross: a cross between two true-breeding parents that express different traits for two characteristics.

Law of Independent Assortment

Consider the characteristics of seed color and seed texture for two pea plants: one that has green, wrinkled seeds (yyrr) and another that has yellow, round seeds (YYRR). Because each parent is homozygous, the law of segregation indicates that the gametes for the green/wrinkled plant all are yr, while the gametes for the yellow/round plant are all YR. Therefore, the F₁ generation of offspring all are YyRr.

For the F₂ generation, the law of segregation requires that each gamete receive either an R allele or an r allele along with either a Y allele or a y allele. The law of independent assortment states that a gamete into which an r allele sorted would be equally likely to contain either a Y allele or a y allele.

Thus, there are four equally likely gametes that can be formed when the YyRr heterozygote is self-crossed as follows: YR, Yr, yR, and yr. Arranging these gametes along the top and left of a 4 × 4 Punnett square gives us 16 equally likely genotypic combinations. From these genotypes, we infer a phenotypic ratio of 9 round/yellow:3 round/green:3 wrinkled/yellow:1 wrinkled/green. These are the offspring ratios we would expect, assuming we performed the crosses with a large enough sample size.

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By Team Learning Mantras