Science Notes Class -X

Chapter - 9 ( Hereditary )

# Heredity: Heredity refers to the passing of characteristics from one generation to the next.

# Variation: The differences in characters of parents and offspring are known as variations.
The variation occurs due to some errors in DNA copying.

# Importance of Variations:

1. It is the basis of heredity. 2. It is the basis of evolution also.

3. It increases the chances of the survival of the organism according to the changing
environment.

# Important Terms

# Alleles are a pair of genes that occupy a specific location on a particular chromosome and
control the same trait.

# Homozygous- When a specific gene has two copies of the same allele. (two dominant
alleles)

Heterozygous- When a specific gene has two different types of alleles. (one dominant and the
other recessive) .

# A trait is a distinct phenotypic character of an organism that may be inherited,

environmentally determined or somewhere in between.

# Inherited Traits: The traits that are inherited from the parents are called inherited
characters. Examples are attached or free ear lobes in human beings, height, skin colour and
eye colour.

# Acquired Traits: Acquired traits are acquired by an organism during their lifetime which is
not passed to the next generation. For example, if a mouse's tail gets cut, the cut tail is an
acquired trait.

# Genetics: It is the branch of biology that deals with heredity and variations.

# Rules for the inheritance of Traits– Mendel's Contributions: Mendel is considered the father
of Genetics. Gregor Johann Mendel conducted experiments with garden peas ( Pisum sativum
) plants and determined the rules for the inheritance of traits.

# Benefits of choosing the pea plant

1. Produces a large number of seeds 2. Shorter life cycle 3. self-pollinating

4. Various contrasting traits can be observed. 5. Pea plants grow very fast.

# Mendel’s traits included:

1. Seed shape — Round (R) or Wrinkled (r) 2. Seed Color —- Yellow (Y) or Green (y)

3. Flower color — Purple (P) or white (p) etc.

# Mendel’s laws: 1. Law of Dominance, 2. Law of Segregation, 3. Law of Independent

Assortment.

# Law of Dominance: According to the law of dominance, hybrid offspring will only inherit the
dominant trait in the phenotype.

# Law of segregation: The two copies of each genetic factor segregate during the
development of gametes, to ensure that each parent’s offspring attains one factor.’’

# Law of independent assortment: It is based on dihybrid cross. It states that inheritance of

one character is always independent of the inheritance of other characters within the same
individual.

# Mendel’s Experiment: Mendel started his experiment on the pea plants. He conducted first
monohybrid and then dihybrid crosses.

# Monohybrid Cross: Cross between two pea plants for one pair of contrasting trait of a
character. Example: Tall/Short Plants for Stem height.

----> Mendel took two types of pea plants – a tall plant and a short plant, produced progeny
from them, and calculated the percentages of tall or short progeny.

# Observations from experiment were:

1. In first generation (F1), all plants were tall.

2. In second generation (F2), one quarter of plants were short and others were tall.
# Phenotype: It refers to the physical appearance of the organism.

# Genotype: It refers to the genetic make up of an individual.

# Dihybrid Cross: Cross between two pea plants with two pairs of contrasting characters is
called a dihybrid cross.

Mendel crossed between pea plants bearing round green seeds and pea plants bearing
wrinkled and yellow seeds.

# Observations from experiment were:

1. In F1 generation, all plants had round and yellow seeds. Thus, round and yellow are
dominant traits and wrinkled and green are recessive traits.

2. In F2 generation, four different types of seeds were obtained. They were - round yellow,
round green, wrinkled yellow and wrinkled green in the ratio of 9 : 3 : 3 : 1.

# A typical Mendelian dihybrid cross between yellow round (dominant) and green wrinkled
(recessive plants) can be represented as follows :
# Sex Determination: Sex determination is the genetic process of determining the sex of the
organism.

---- > Males have XY chromosome and Females have XX chromosomes. When a baby inherits
the X chromosome from the father and the X chromosome from the mother, then the baby
will be a female baby. When a baby inherits the Y chromosome from the father and the X
chromosome from the mother, then the baby will be a male baby.