Discuss how Mendel's monohybrid results served as the basis for all but one of his postulates. Which postulate was not based on these results? Why?

Key Concepts

Mendel's Monohybrid Cross

Mendel's monohybrid cross experiments involved breeding pea plants that differed in a single trait, such as flower color. By analyzing the offspring, he observed a consistent 3:1 ratio of dominant to recessive traits in the F2 generation. This foundational work established the principles of inheritance and laid the groundwork for his postulates regarding how traits are passed from parents to offspring.

Mendel's Postulates

Mendel proposed several key postulates based on his experimental results, including the Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment. These postulates describe how alleles segregate during gamete formation and how different traits are inherited independently. Understanding these postulates is crucial for grasping the mechanisms of genetic inheritance and the predictability of trait distribution in offspring.

The Law of Dominance

The Law of Dominance states that in a heterozygous individual, one allele may mask the expression of another. This concept was directly supported by Mendel's monohybrid results, where the dominant trait appeared in the F1 generation. However, the postulate that was not based on these results is the Law of Independent Assortment, which pertains to the inheritance of multiple traits and was derived from dihybrid crosses rather than monohybrid crosses.