Genetics In Mendelian Genetics

When one thinks of biology, one of the first topics that might come to mind is Mendelian genetics and the concept of genetic inheritance. In the 1800s, Gregor Mendel pioneered many scientific breakthroughs in the area of genetics by exploring specific genes, also known as units of inherited traits, being passed down to offspring. Mendel achieved this by crossing, also known as breeding, pea plants and observing seven characteristics among generations of offspring. These seven characteristics were plant height, pod shape and color, seed shape and color, as well as flower position and color. By doing this, he realized that only two different traits of each characteristic was shown. These physical traits, or phenotypes, were only the start of a deeper understanding of genetic inheritance, however. Mendel came to the realization that phenotypes were influences by an offspring's inheritance of a trait from both of their parents. These genotypes involved inheriting one allele, or version of a gene, from one parent for a certain characteristic and another allele from the other parent. In

Complete dominance also means that a dominant allele can mask or cancel out the effect of a recessive allele if an offspring if they inherited different alleles from their parents. Inheriting a dominant allele from one parent and a recessive allele from another parent for a trait is the definition of an individual being heterozygous for a trait. While the organism in question does not show the recessive allele physically, it can be passed down to offspring and possibly be shown if the other parent also passes down a recessive allele. In order to know whether or not offspring are heterozygous for a trait, test crossing two offspring from the same parents can help determine a genotype. If it is found that an offspring has two dominant alleles for a trait, they are homozygous dominant for that