Mendel Laws of Inheritance: Johan Gregor Mendel, also known as the “father of genetics”, started a decade-long research project in 1856 to study the patterns of inheritance. Mendel experimented on a pea plant and considered 7 main contrasting traits in the plants. Then, he conducted both the experiments to determine the aforementioned inheritance laws. A brief explanation of the two experiments is given below.

Why was Pea Plant Selected for Mendel Laws of Inheritance?

• The pea plants were easy to grow and maintain
• It has many clearly distinct and contrasting characters.
• The pea plant is an annual plant and so many generations of the plant can be studied in a short period of time.
• Peas are naturally self-pollinating but can also be cross-pollinated.

Results of Mendel Laws of Inheritance

• In the F1 generation, Mendel observed that all plants were tall. there were no dwarf plants.
• In the F2 generation, Mendel observed that 3 of the offsprings were tall whereas 1 was dwarf.
• Similar results were found when Mendel studied other characters.
• Mendel observed that in the F1 generation, the characters of only one parent appeared whereas, in the F2 generation, the characters of the other parent also appeared.
• The characters that appear in the F1 generation are called dominant traits and those that appear for the first time in the F2 generation are called recessive traits.

Mendel Laws of Inheritance

• Law of Dominance: Mendel’s law of dominance states that when parents with pure contrasting traits are crossed together, only the dominant trait will appear as the phenotype of the next generation. The recessive trait will be concealed.
• The Law of Segregation: The 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. This is also known as Mendel’s third law of inheritance.
• Law of independent assortment: It is also known as Mendel’s second law of inheritance, the 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.

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By Team Learning Mantras