CHAPTER 22

LESSON 1
Heredity and How
Traits Change
How are traits inherited?
Key Concepts
• How are traits inherited?
What do you think? Read the two statements below and decide • Why do scientists study
whether you agree or disagree with them. Place an A in the Before column
genetics?
if you agree with the statement or a D if you disagree. After you’ve read
this lesson, reread the statements to see if you have changed your mind. • What did Gregor Mendel
investigate and discover
Before Statement After
about heredity?
1. Genes are on chromosomes.
2. Only dominant genes are passed on to offspring.

3TUDY#OACH

Make an outline as you

From Parent to Offspring read to summarize the
You and your classmates are all the same species, Homo information in the lesson.
sapiens. But why do you all have different eye colors, hair Use the main headings in
colors, and heights? How do you inherit traits from your the lesson as the main
parents? Heredity (huh REH duh tee) is the passing of traits from headings in your outline.
parents to offspring. Scientists who study heredity have been Use your outline to review
Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

answering questions like these for centuries. the lesson.

What is genetics? Chromosome Pair

Genetics (juh NE tihks) is the study of
how traits pass from parents to offspring.
All organisms have genes. Genes
No Dimples
determine an organism’s shape and dimples
its life functions. Genes can even Visual Check
control how an organism behaves. 1. Draw a circle around the
For most organisms, genes are alleles for dimples.
sections of DNA that contain
information about a specific trait of
that organism. This information
Smooth Cleft Make a horizontal two-tab
can vary. A gene with different book and use it to organize
chin chin
information for a trait is called an information about the study
allele. For example, facial dimples result from alleles on a of genetics.
pair of chromosomes. The figure above shows the
Development Common
relationship between alleles on chromosomes and the traits and Ancestors
they express. Each chromosome pair has genes for the same Disease
Why Scientists Study Genetics
traits. Recall that chromosomes are coiled strands of DNA.

Reading Essentials Heredity and How Traits Change 397

REVIEW VOCABULARY
trait
a distinguishing characteristic
of an organism
Reading Check
2. Explain why each
individual is unique.
Key Concept Check
3. State How are traits
inherited?
398 Heredity and How Traits Change
How are traits inherited?
An organism passes its traits to its offspring in one of
two ways: (1) through asexual reproduction or (2) through
sexual reproduction. Unicellular organisms such as bacteria
can reproduce asexually. Some multicellular organisms such
as spider plants also reproduce asexually. In asexual
reproduction, one organism makes a copy of its genes and
itself. In sexual reproduction, offspring receive half of their
genes from an egg cell and the other half from a sperm cell.
An individual organism expresses the traits in the genes it
inherited. For example, if your eyes are blue, it is because
you inherited the genes for blue eye color from your parents.
In fact, the specific combination of the genes you inherited
from your parents for all of your traits is unique. Unless you
are an identical twin, triplet, or quadruplet, no other person
has the same combination of all your genes!
Inherited traits are different from traits that an individual
acquires, or learns, during its lifetime. For example, a bird’s
size is mostly inherited from its parents. However, the song
it sings is mostly learned. Young golden orioles will learn to
sing by listening to their parents’ songs. Obedience in tame
animals is another example of an acquired trait. You can
teach a dog to sit, but its puppies will not be born already
knowing that they should sit when you tell them to.
Why do scientists study genetics?
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Scientists began studying genetics to understand how
traits are inherited. They soon learned that genes control
how an organism develops. They also learned that sometimes
genes play a role in the development of disease. Scientists
also use genetics to find out more about how species are
related.
Development and Disease By studying genetics, scientists
have learned that genes control how organisms develop. For
example, genes control limb development, body segmentation,
and the formation of organs, such as eyes and ears.
Studying the genetics of development also can help
scientists understand more about disease in humans. For
example, scientists have learned how problems with genes in
fish can result in diseases in those fish. Scientists can use
what they have learned and apply it to the study of human
genetics.
Reading Essentials
 Common Ancestors Studying genetics also can help Key Concept Check
scientists determine how organisms are related. The figure 4. Summarize Why do
below shows how scientists placed a gene that controls eye scientists study genetics?
development in mice into a fruit fly. The fly developed
normal eyes! In another experiment, scientists placed the
gene that controls eye development in fruit flies into a frog.
Like the fly that received the mouse gene, the frog developed
normal eyes. Because the genes from these organisms are
similar enough to produce normal eyes when the genes are
exchanged, scientists suspect that these species share a
common, ancient ancestor.

Genetics Experiments
Experiment A Experiment B

Scientists removed the

Scientists removed the gene that controls eye
gene that controls eye development from a
development from a fruit fly and inserted it
mouse and inserted it into a frog embryo.
into the embryo of a
fruit fly.
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The frog
The fruit fly developed
developed normal eyes.
normal eyes.

Heredity—The History and the Basics Visual Check

For thousands of years, humans have been slowly 5. Explain the difference
improving crops and farm animals through selective breeding. between Experiment A and
Selective breeding is the selection and breeding of organisms for desired Experiment B.
traits. Suppose you are a farmer who owns three hens. One
produces 180 eggs per year, one produces 230, and one
produces 280. If you wanted to breed hens that produced
more eggs, which hen would you breed with the neighbor’s
rooster? Why?
Though people have successfully used selective breeding
throughout history, they did not always get the results they
expected. When an Austrian friar named Gregor Mendel
began experimenting with pea plants, people finally learned
more about how selective breeding works.

Reading Essentials Heredity and How Traits Change 399


Reading Check
6. Relate Before Mendel,
how did scientists believe
traits were inherited?
Visual Check
7. Recognize What
happened to the yellow-pod
trait in Mendel’s experiment?
Reading Check
8. Name three traits
Mendel tracked in his hybrid
experiments.
400 Heredity and How Traits Change
Mendel’s Experiments
In 1856, Gregor Mendel began experimenting to answer
the question of how traits are inherited. At the time, most
scientists thought that traits blended from parents to offspring,
similar to the way two colors of paint can be blended. But
Mendel did not accept the blending hypothesis.
Crossing True-Breeding Plants To test his ideas, Mendel
carefully selected pea plants with specific traits. He then bred
the plants. As shown in the figure below, Mendel chose
plants that produced only green pods. These plants were
called true-breeding plants. Mendel crossed the true-breeding
plants that produced only green pods with true-breeding
plants that produced only yellow pods. All of their offspring,
called hybrids, produced only green pods. The yellow-pod
trait seemed to disappear completely. It did not seem to
blend with the green-pod trait.
Crossing True-Breeding Plants
True-breeding True-breeding
plant with plant with
green pods yellow pods
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Hybrid offspring all
have green pods.
Crossing Hybrids When Mendel crossed two hybrid plants
with green pods, the cross resulted in some offspring with
green pods and other offspring with yellow pods. The results
of the cross are shown in the figure at the top of the next
page. These offspring were in a ratio of about 3:1, green to
yellow.
Mendel tested thousands of pea plants. He tracked traits
such as seed shape and flower color. The crosses between
hybrids for each trait produced a similar 3:1 ratio. Mendel
proposed several ideas to explain his results.
Reading Essentials
 Crossing Hybrid Plants

Hybrid plant Hybrid plant Visual Check

with green with green 9. State What was the
pods pods
ratio of offspring with green
pods to offspring with yellow
pods when two hybrids with
green pods were crossed?

Offspring have green pods or

yellow pods in a ratio of 3:1.

Dominant and Recessive Alleles

Mendel proposed that instead of blending, some traits
of organisms are dominant, and others are recessive. A
dominant trait is a genetic factor that blocks another genetic factor.
A recessive trait is a genetic factor that is blocked by the presence of a
dominant factor. When an individual has one dominant allele
and one recessive allele for a trait, the dominant trait is
expressed. Reading Check
The presence of dominant and recessive traits explains 10. Differentiate What
why the offspring of the true-breeding green-pod plants and is the difference between a
dominant and a recessive
the true-breeding yellow-pod plants all produce green pods.
trait?
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Green pods are a dominant trait, and yellow pods are a

recessive trait.

Mendel’s Principles of Inheritance

Earlier in this lesson, you read that an allele is one form
of a gene. Mendel did not know about genes or alleles.
Mendel did suspect, however, that a physical factor was
responsible for the traits of his pea plants. Mendel was right.
The factors Mendel proposed now are called genes.
Genotype and Phenotype Which alleles are present on
a pair of chromosomes determines whether an individual
has the dominant or the recessive trait. The alleles of all the
11. Classify Which of the
genes on an organism’s chromosomes make up the organism’s following is an example of a
genotype (JEE nuh tipe). How the traits appear, or are expressed, phenotype? (Circle the
is the organism’s phenotype (FEE nuh tipe). correct answer.)
a. an organism’s
chromosomes
b. eye color
c. alleles

Reading Essentials Heredity and How Traits Change 401


Key Concept Check
12. Explain What did
Mendel investigate and
discover about heredity?
402 Heredity and How Traits Change
Heterozygous and Homozygous Genotypes The hybrid pea
plants from Mendel’s experiments had genotypes of one
allele for green pods and one allele for yellow pods. The
phenotypes of these plants were green pods. When an
organism’s genotype has two different alleles for a trait, it is called
heterozygous (he tuh roh ZI gus). The hybrid plants were
heterozygous for pod color.
When an organism’s genotype has two identical alleles for a trait, it
is called homozygous (hoh muh ZI gus). Mendel’s true-breeding
plants were homozygous for pod color. Homozygous and
heterozygous genotypes also affect the phenotypes of other
organisms.
Next, you will read about the rediscovery of Mendel’s work.
Scientists have confirmed and built upon Mendel’s ideas as
they have learned more about genetics and heredity.
Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Reading Essentials
 Mini Glossary
dominant trait: a genetic factor that blocks another homozygous (hoh muh ZI gus): an organism’s genotype
genetic factor that as two identical alleles for a trait

genetics (juh NE tihks): the study of how traits pass from phenotype (FEE nuh tipe): how an organism’s traits appear
parents to offspring or are expressed

genotype (JEE nuh tipe): the alleles of all the genes on an recessive trait: a genetic factor that is blocked by the
organism’s chromosomes presence of a dominant factor

heredity (huh RE duh tee): the passing of traits from selective breeding: the selection and breeding of organisms
parents to offspring for desired traits

heterozygous (he tuh roh ZI gus): an organism’s

genotype that has two different alleles for a trait

1. Review the terms and their definitions in the Mini Glossary. Write a sentence contrasting
dominant and recessive traits.

2. Complete the graphic organizer below, which represents Mendel’s pea-plant experiments.

True-breeding Hybrids
green pod × yellow pod green pod × green pod
Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Circle one of the following: Circle one of the following:

homozygous heterozygous homozygous heterozygous

The offspring color is . The offspring color is and

dominant color: in a ratio of : .
recessive color: The phenotype is pods.

3. Select a word that appears in the main heading of the outline you created when you
reviewed the lesson. In the space below, define that word.

What do you think

Reread the statements at the beginning of the Connect ED
lesson. Fill in the After column with an A if you Log on to ConnectED.mcgraw-hill.com
agree with the statement or a D if you disagree. and access your textbook to find this END OF
Did you change your mind? lesson’s resources. LESSON

Reading Essentials Heredity and How Traits Change 403