Mendel's Laws

Written by tutor Laura R.

By the 1800s, people generally understood that offspring inherited traits from their parents. Initially, however, it was
thought that the traits of both parents blended together in their offspring. Called the blending hypothesis, this
theory explained inheritance like two different liquids mixing together. Gregor Mendels careful work with thousands
of pea plants in the 1860 proved the blending hypothesis wrong and explained how inheritance really happens.
Mendel's Experiments
Mendel studied several different traits of a pea plant.
For example, some pea plants have purple flowers and
others have white flowers. Pea plants can either self-
fertilize or cross-fertilize. Crossing two plants is
called hybridization. To start, however, Mendel
needed plants that were true-breeding. This means
that after generations of self-breeding, the pea plant
expressed only one version of the trait. After many
generations a purple flowered plant only produced
plant never produced a white flowered plant.
Mendel then crossed a true-breeding purple flower
plant and a true-breeding white flower plant. This is
called amonohybrid experiment. A test cross is
performed between two plants that breed true for one
trait, and the resulting trait for each offspring plant is
determined
The first, true-breeding generation, is called the
parent, P generation. The first generation of
offspring, the first filial generation, is
the F
1
generation. Mendel found that these plants all
had purple flowers. The F
1
generation was crossed with itself. The next generation, F
2
generation, had a 3:1 ration
of purple to white flowers.
If the blending hypothesis was correct, the F
1
generation should have all had light purple flowers. Instead, all the
F
1
plants had dark purple flowers. How did Mendel explain the complete loss of the white flower characteristic in the
first generation and its reappearance in the second generation?




The Law of Segregation
Mendel explained what he saw using the law of segregation. Each gene can have different alleles. For example, one
gene determines flower color in pea plants. Different versions of that same gene are alleles. The two different
alleles here are purple flowers and white flowers. Each plant has two copies of each gene: one copy from each
parent plant. The F
1
generation inherits a purple allele and a white allele. Even though the plant has one copy of
each, we only see the trait from the purple flower gene. When a plant has one copy of each gene, the gene we see
is the dominant allele. We indicate this with a capital letter for the allele, P. The gene that is masked by the
dominant allele is recessive. Here the white allele is recessive, and we represent this using a lower case letter for
the gene p.
The F
1
plants all have one purple allele (P) and one white allele (p). The genotype is the alleles for each gene in the
plant. Here the genotype is Pp. A plant with two of the same alleles is homozygous. A plant with two different
alleles isheterozygous. The characteristic that we see with our eyes is the phenotype. For Pp, the phenotype is
purple flowers.
This inheritance model is explained using
a Punnett square.
The law of segregation states that during gamete
formation, the two genes each end up in different
gametes. The gametes from each parent form a
zygote, and the pairing of genes is random. The
distribution of genes in the offspring is therefore
dictated by probability. In a Punnett square, the
alleles from one parent are written across the top
and the genes from the other parent are written
on the left side. Each box is filled with one allele
from the top and one from the left. The ratio of
genotypes for the offspring, is the ratio of
genotypes from each of these boxes. The F1
generation is 100% Pp. The F2 generation is
25% PP (homozygous dominant, purple flowers),
50% Pp (heterozygous, purple flowers), and 25%
pp (homozygous recessive, white flowers). This is
how the white characteristic reappears in the
second generation. The phenotype is 3:1, purple
to white.



The Law of Independent Assortment
The law of independent assortment states that the
alleles for two different genes sort independently
into gametes. Crosses that examine two different
traits are called dihybrid crosses. For example,
round seeds (R) are dominant to wrinkled seeds
(r), and yellow seeds (Y) are dominant to green
seeds (y). For our test cross we have two true-
breeding P generation plants: RRYY and rryy.

The F
1
generation has a genotype of RrYy and a
round, yellow phenotype. The F
1
generation is then
crossed with itself: RrYy x RrYy. The law of
independent assortment means that the gametes
have an equal chance of having RY or Ry. RY and
ry do not have to sort together into gametes.
Again, probability determines the genotype and
phenotype for the F
2
generation.
The Punnett square for a dihybrid cross has the
possibilities for each trait from both parents across
the top or on the left side. Now we are looking at
two traits instead of one. The F
2
generation now
has a 9:3:3:1 ratio of round, yellow: round, green:
wrinkled, yellow: wrinkled, green.















Mendel's Laws Practice Quiz
Which represents a homozygous dominant individual?
Correct Answer
A. BB
B. Bb
C. bb
The correct answer here would be A.
2. The axial flower position (A) is dominant to the terminal flower position (a). If a homozygous dominant plant is
crossed with a heterozygous plant, what is the probability that the offspring will be heterozygous?
A. 25%
Correct Answer
B. 50%
C. 75%
D. 100%
The correct answer here would be B.
Stem length tall (T) is dominant to dwarf (t). If a plant that is heterozygous for stem length and seed color (TtYy) is
crossed with itself, what is the probability that the offspring will be a dwarf plant with yellow seeds?
Correct Answer
A. 1/16
B. 1/8
Your Answer
C. 1/4
D. 1/2
The correct answer here would be A.