Gregor Mendel

Gregor Mendel was a 19th century Austrian scientist and friar. He studied at the University of Olomouc and the University of Vienna, studying Philosophy, Physics, Astronomy and Meteorology. During his time in the monastery he researched and studied the breeding of bees and pea plants. He conducted his study of the pea plants in the 2 hectares of garden the monastery owned, and in the study he tested around 29000 pea plants. Mendels First Law is the Law of Segregation, which states that every individual has two alleles for any trait. The alleles passed on to the offspring are randomly selected copies, and then depending on which of the two alleles is dominant and recessive will determine the phenotype of the offspring. The First Law also states that when gametes are produced the genes separate so that the gamete only receives one allele. Mendels Second Law is the Law of Independent Assortment this law states that different genes for different traits are passed on independently of each other. This means that the alleles of different genes assort independently from each other during the gamete formation. Mendels experiments showed that during Monohybrid Genetic Crosses the ratio was 3:1 for mixing traits, whilst for Dihybrid Genetic Crosses the ratio was 9:3:3:1.