Mendelian

Genetics
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 What is genetics?
• Heredity is the way organisms pass traits on
to their offspring.
• Scientists often track traits or characteristics
that show variety in a population.
• For humans, some examples of these traits are
eye color, hair color, height, body build, blood
types, intelligence, and gender.
• The biological field of genetics is the study of
these hereditary patterns.

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Who is Gregor Mendel?

• Austrian monk born in 1822

• He systematically bred pea plants to investigate the
how they passed down their traits.
• He collected very detailed data on many traits of
the pea plant.

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• Pea plants have 2 advantages as genetic
specimens:
• They have many visible (easy-to-see) traits
• They can be self or cross pollinated.

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• To keep track of the traits in
each generation of plants, he
created some terminology,
which we still use today:
• First filial (F1) generation- the
first generation of offspring
created when 2 plants were
cross-pollinated
• Second filial (F2) generation-
the offspring created when 2 of
the F1 plants were cross-
pollinated

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• Mendel noticed that some plants
always seemed to produce the same
characteristic in their offspring. We call
these true breeding plants.
• Other times, traits seemed to disappear
and then reappear in future
generations.

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• Mendel noticed that when two plants with different
traits were crossed, the F1 generation only showed
one of the traits. The other seemed to disappear.
• When 2 of these F1 plants were crossed, the F2
generation showed the trait from the F1 generation
in ¾ of the F2 plants and the trait that had
disappeared showed again in ¼ of the F2 plants.

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What were the factors Mendel was studying?
• He named these characteristics (which we now call traits):
• Dominant trait: seemed to “dominate” the other trait in
the F1
• Recessive trait: disappeared in the F1, but reappeared in
the F2

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• We now know that each
of the traits that Mendel
studied was determined
by a single gene.
• A gene is simply a
segment of DNA that
codes for a specific
characteristic.
• Considering DNA hadn’t even
been discovered in Mendel’s
time, he created some
revolutionary rules based on
his pea plant observations.
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• The alleles (different forms of a gene)
separate independently when gametes are
formed during meiosis.

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• In genetics, letters are used to represent
genes. Capital letters represent dominant
alleles and lowercase letters represent
recessive alleles.

B b © Suburban Science 2020

How do genotypes & phenotypes
differ?
• Each organism has 2 copies of each
gene (one from each parent) with either
dominant or recessive alleles.
• The genotype is the genetic makeup of
a gene, which we write in letter pairs.
• The phenotype is the physical
expression of a gene caused by the
genotype.
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• For example, the genotype below has
two alleles- one dominant and one
recessive.
• One allele came from each parent.
• The phenotype of this organism would
show the dominant trait because the
dominant allele overshadows the
recessive.

Bb © Suburban Science 2020

 Summary
• Gregor Mendel used pea plants to
learn about heredity. He suggested
that some traits were dominant and
some were recessive. Although he
studied phenotypes, scientists now
use genotypes to show the
combination of alleles.
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Genotype:
The letter combination
representing the alleles
Ex: Pp
Phenotype:
What the trait looks like

Ex: purple

You can see the

phenotype, but
not the genotype.
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 Homozygous Heterozygous: Homozygous
dominant: Both recessive: Both
The 2 alleles are
alleles are alleles are
dominant
different recessive

If purple flowers are a dominant trait, any genotype with a

dominant allele will be purple. Any genotype without a
dominant allele will show the recessive trait (white).
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• Try another one:
• If round seeds are dominant to
wrinkled seeds (which are
recessive), what will the
phenotypes be for the following
genotypes:
• RR
• Rr
• rr
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What are Punnett Squares?
• Punnett squares are a quick way
to show how alleles will be
combined in the next
generation.
• One parent’s alleles are written
on the top of a 4-square box
and the other parent’s alleles
are written on the side of the
box.
• Alleles are combined to show
possible offspring combinations.

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 Punnett Square example
• Two heterozygous purple flowers
are crossed. What are the
possible offspring combinations?
• Genotypes: The offspring will be
50% heterozygous (Aa), 25%
homozygous dominant (AA) and
25% homozygous recessive (aa).
• Phenotypes (how they look):
75% purple and 25% white

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