Heredity and Evolution an Mendel’s Findings Mendel’s observations of his experiments led to the principles or lav 1, Mendel’s Law of Dominance and Recessive + Each of the F, generation plant shows inheritance of Y allele from one parent anda G allele from the other. When the F, plants breed, each has equal chance of passing on either Y or G allele to cach offspring. © Inall the seven traits that Mendel examined, one form appeared dominant over the other i.c., it marked the presence of the other alllele, e.g. when genotype of pea colour is YG (heterozygous), the phenotype is yellow, However, the dominant yellow allele does not alter the recessive green in any way and both alleles can be passed on to the next generation unchanged. 2. Lawof Segregation * According to this law, for any particular trait, the pair of alleles of each parent separate and only one allele passes from each parent to an offspring. * Alleleina parent's pair of allele is inherited as a matter of chance (we now know segregation of alleles occurs during the process of meiosis) 3. Lawof Independent Assortment * This is also known as ‘Inheritance law’. According to this law, different pairs of alleles are passed to offsprings independently of each other. The result is that new combination of genes present in neither parents is possible e.g. a pea plant’s inheritance of the ability to produce purple flowers instead of white ones does not make it more likely that it will also inherit the ability to produce yellow pea sceds in contrast to green ones. + Today, we know this is due to the fact that the genes for independently assorted traits are located on different chromosomes. + Mendel’s experiment with crossing one trait (monohybrid cross) always resulted in a 3 : 1 ratio between dominant and recessive phenotype. His experiment with mixing two traits (dihybrid cross) showed 9: 3:3: I ratio, But the 9: 3:3: I table shows that each of the two genes are independently inherited with a3: I ratioie., different traits are inherited independently of each other. PARENTAL CROSS 5 Round — yellow Wrinkled-g Parental Phenotype z seeds seeds ce RRYY myy Parental Genotype 2 © OO © ame Bory RrYy ReYy RrYy Round- Round~ ——Round= Round= 1 Beneration Genotype yellow yellow yellow yellow F, generation Phenotype f, Cross Round - yellow. Round-yellow generation Phenotype seeds seeds (Hybrid 1) (Hybrid 2) Factors of inheritance Gametes Fusion of gametes (shown in Punnett squares)32 Science © © © © RRYY RryY RrYy Round- | Rourid- } Round- | Round- yellow | yellow yellow yellow RRYy Rryy RrYy Rryy Round~ | Round | Round-~ | Round~ yellow | green yellow ‘green RrYY RrYy YY wy Round | Round- | wrinkled | wrinkled yellow | yellow yellow yellow RrYy Rryy rr) myy Round- Round— wrinkled wrinkled yellow | green yellow ‘green Fig: Punnett Square SEX DETERMINATION + Sex determination is a biological system that determines the development of sexual characters in an organism, Genetically, both the sexes have different alleles or even different genes that specify their sexual morphology. In a human, the total chromosome complement is 46; 44 of which are autosomes while 2 distinct chromosomes are the sex chromosomes, which determine the sex of an organism and various sex-linked characteristics. In most animals, those that have XX chromosomes are in females while males havean X anda ¥ chromosome, + Thereare two possibilities that can occur during fertilisation between male and female gametes, XX and XY. Since, sperms are the le factor é.e., which sperm will fertilise the egg, the one carrying X- chromosome or the one ¢: s have no sex determination system. Certain species of snails and common earthworm are hermaphrodite. A few species of insects, fishes and reptiles reproduce by parthenogenesis and are females only.