Gregor Mendel
Who was Gregor Mendel?
A priest who began experimenting with pea plants making ground breaking discoveries about heredity and genetics.
What trait or trait(s) was Mendel observing when he cross-pollinated the pea plants?
height, color of seeds
The trait that always shows up in the organism when the allele is present.
Dominant Allele
The passing of traits from parents to offspring is called
heredity
What shape is a Punnett Square?
Square
What type of plants did Gregor Mendel choose to use for his experiments?
Pea plants
What type of plants did Mendel initially cross? (What did the P generation look like?)
1 tall plant and 1 short plant
The allele that will be masked whenever the dominant allele is present and will only show up if there are two recessive alleles.
Recessive Allele
What is the scientific study of heredity?
Genetics
What does a Punnett square show us?
Possible offspring traits.
Where was Gregor Mendel from?
Europe
In Mendel's first experiment, what was surprising about the F1 generation?
All offspring were tall
What is the term for an organism with both a dominant and a recessive allele for a trait?
Hybrid or Heterozygous
The factors that control traits are called
genes
If I cross a flower that is recessive for white color (ww) and a flower that is also recessive for white color (ww) what will the offspring look like? Why?
The offspring will be white. The only available alleles are recessive.
Gregor Mendel became known as what?
The Father of Genetics
What did Mendel discover about the F2 generation?
75% were tall and 25% were short
What letters do we use to represent dominant and recessive alleles?
Uppercase for dominant, lowercase for recessive
Different forms of a gene are called
alleles
If a sunflower is hybrid (heterozygous) for being tall (Tt) is crossed with a sunflower that is purebred dominant for being tall (TT) what will the offspring look like?
All offspring will be tall. 50% will be hybrid and 50% will be homozygous (TT).
What happened to Mendel's work initially?
Scientists thought it was oversimplified and it was widely disregarded for 34 years.
Why did Mendel study pea plants?
Mendel studied pea plants because they were self-pollinating.
Explain the difference between dominant and recessive alleles.
Dominant alleles express their trait when present, while recessive alleles only express if both alleles are recessive.
An organism that always produces offspring with the same form of a trait as the parent.
Purebred
Could genetic inheritance of traits cause an adaptation (change) in a population of organisms? Explain.
Yes. Using farming as an example, I breed only tall horses to ensure their offspring can only be tall.