LANCER’S CONVENT

CLASS – X
CH: HEREDITY AND EVOLUTION

Some important terms

Heredity: 
The passing of traits from the parents to offspring is called heredity. This is heredity which is responsible for
many commonly observable facts; like siblings looking similar in overall appearance.

Acquired Traits: Traits; which are acquired due to interaction with the environment; are called acquired traits.
Acquired traits are not inheritable. For example; if a boxer develops bulging biceps, it does not mean that his
son would be borne with bulging biceps.

Inheritable Traits: Traits; which can be expressed in subsequent generations; are called inheritable traits. Such
traits bring a change in the genotype of the organism and hence become inheritable.Inherited traits include
things such as hair color, eye color, muscle structure, bone structure, and even features like the shape of a nose

Chromosomes are long thread-like structures present in the nucleus of a cell which contain
hereditary information of the cell in the form of genes.

DNA (Deoxy Ribonucleic Acid) is a chemical in the chromosome which carries the traits in a coded
form

Gene is the part of a chromosome which controls a specific biological function. They are the
functional segments of DNA.

Contrasting characters: A pair of visible characters such as tall and dwarf, white and violet flowers,
round and wrinkled seeds, green and yellow seeds etc.

Dominant trait: The character which expresses itself in a (Ft) generation is dominant trait. Example:
Tallness is a dominant character in pea plant.

Recessive trait: The character which does not express itself but is present in a generation is
recessive trait. Ex. dwarfism in the pea plant.

Homozygous: A condition in which both the genes of same type are present for example; an
organism has both the genes for tallness it is expressed as TT and genes for dwarfness are written
as tt.

Heterozygous: A condition in which both the genes are of different types for example; an organism
has genes Tt it means it has a gene for tallness and the other for dwarfness only tall character is
expressed.

Genotype: It is genetic make up of an individual for example; A pure tall plant is expressed as TT and
hybrid tall as Tt.
Phenotype: It is external appearance of the organism for example; a plant having Tt composition will
appear tall although it has gene for dwarfness.

Difference between Genotype and Phenotype:

Homologous pair of charactersare those in which one member is contributed by the father and the
other member by the mother and both have genes for the same character at the same position.

Accumulation of Variations During Reproduction:

Asexual reproduction involves a single parent and is hence not ideal ideal for facilitating variations. Some
minor variations do occur due to inaccuracies in DNA replication. But the quantum of variations would be too
little and would take too many years to show effect.
Sexual reproduction, on the other hand, is ideal for facilitating variations because two parents are involved in it.
The offspring’s genotype is contributed by two parents and hence chances of variations are very high.
Rules of Inheritance
Gregor Johann Mendel conducted experiments on pea plants and proposed the rules of inheritance; based on his
observations. Mendel observed that characters are often present in pairs. A pair of contrasting characters is
called allele.
Possible Reasons of Pea Plants Used by Mendel:

 Pea can be termed as biennial plant, i.e. two generations of a pea plant can grow in a given year. This
means that Mendel could get enough time to observe a larger number of generations.
 Many easily identifiable and contrasting characters are present in pea plants.
 Cross pollination can be easily induced in pea plants.


Mendel studied the following seven characters with contrasting traits:

 Stem height: Tall/dwarf

 Seed shape: Round/wrinkled
 Seed colour: Yellow/green
 Pod colour: Green/yellow
 Pod shape: Inflated/constricted
 Flower colour: Violet/white
 Flower position: Axial/terminal

Monohybrid Cross: The cross in which just two contrasting characters are studied is called monohybrid cross.
Mendel did monohybrid cross for his first experiment. He selected a pair of contrasting characters for that
experiment.
Let us take the example of cross between tall plants and short plants. The figure; given here shows the results of
this experiment.
TT represents the genotype of tall plant and tt represents the genotype of short plants. In the F2 generation, all
plants were tall but their genotype was Tt; which means they were not pure tall plants. This could be established
by the appearance of the character of shortness in the F2 generation; in which most of the plants were tall and
some of the plants were short. This experiment showed that the character of shortness of recessive in F1
generation and hence could not be observed. The ratio of number of tall plants to that of short plants in F2
generation was 3:1
Phenotypic ratio – 3:1
Genotypic ratio – 1:2:1
Phenotype i.e physical appearance [Tall or Short]

Genotype i.e. Geneticmakeup [TT, Tt or tt]

Observations : 1. All F1 progeny were tall

(no medium height plant (half way characteristic)
2. F2 progeny ¼ were short
3. Phenotypic ratio F2 – 3:1 Genotypic ratio F2 – 1:2:1

Conclusions : 1. TT and Tt both are tall plants while tt is a short plant.

2. A single copy of T is enough to make the plant tall, while both copies have to be 't' for the
plant to be short.
3. Characters/Traits like 'T' are called dominant trait (because it express itself) 't' are
recessive trait (because it remains suppressed)
Mendel's Laws of Genetics

Law of Dominance

In a cross of parents that are pure for contrasting traits, only one form of the trait will appear in the next
generation. Offspring that are hybrid for a trait will have only the dominant trait in the phenotype.
 Law of Segregation: Every individual possesses a pair of alleles for a particular trait. During gamete
formation, a gamete receives only one trait from the alleles. A particular trait can be dominant or recessive in
a particular generation.
Dihybrid Cross: 

The cross in which two pairs of characters are studied is called dihybrid cross. In his second experiment,
Mendel used dihybrid cross.

The cross was made between pe plants having round yellow seeds (RRYY) and wrinkled green (rryy) seeds.

Let us take example between plants with round and green seeds and those with wrinkled and yellow seeds. The
genotype of round and green seeds is shown by RRyy and that of wrinkled and yellow seeds is shown by rrYY.
In the F1 generation, all plants produced round and yellow seeds; which means that wrinkled texture was the
recessive character and so was the green colour of seeds. When plants of F1 generation were allowed to self
pollinate; it was observed that most of the plants in F2 generation produced round and yellow seeds. Some
plants produces round green seeds, some produced wrinkled yellow seeds and some produced wrinkled green
seeds. The ratio was 9 : 3 : 3 : 1; as shown in the figure.

PHENOTYPIC RATIO : Round, yellow :9

Round, green :3
Wrinkled, yellow : 3
Wrinkled, green : 1

Observations :1. When RRYY was crossed withrryyin F1generation allwere RrYy round and yellow seeds.
2. Self pollination of F1 plants gave parental phenotype + two mixtures (recombinants)
Round wrinkled, green yellow : seeds plants appeared in the ratio of 9:3:3:1

Conclusions : 1. Round and yellow seeds are DOMINANT characters

2. Occurrence of new phenotypic combinations show that genes for round and yellow seeds
are inheritedindependently of each other.

Difference between Monohybrid and Dihybrid cross.

Mendel’s Second Law:

Law of Independent Assortment: Alleles of different characters separate independent from each other
during gamete formation.
In the above example; alleles of texture were assorted independently from those of seed colour.
Sex Determination in Humans:

Somatic cells in human beings contain 23 pairs of chromosomes. Out of them the 23rd pair is composed of
different types of chromosomes which are named as X and Y chromosomes. The 23rd pair contains one X and
one Y chromosome in a male. On the other hand, the 23rd pair in a female contains X chromosomes. This
means that all the eggs would have X chromosome as the 23rd chromosome, while a sperm may have either X
or Y chromosome as the 23rd chromosome. When a sperm with X chromosome fertilizes the egg, the resulting
zygote would develop into a female child. When a sperm with Y chromosome fertilizes the egg, the resulting
zygote would develop into a male child.

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