Describe Mendel's conclusions about how traits are passed from generation to generation.

Key Concepts

Mendelian Inheritance

Mendelian inheritance refers to the principles of heredity established by Gregor Mendel through his experiments with pea plants. He discovered that traits are passed from parents to offspring in predictable patterns, leading to the formulation of the laws of segregation and independent assortment. These laws explain how alleles segregate during gamete formation and how different traits are inherited independently of one another.

Dominant and Recessive Traits

In Mendel's studies, he identified that traits can be dominant or recessive. A dominant trait is expressed in the phenotype even if only one copy of the allele is present, while a recessive trait requires two copies to be expressed. This concept is crucial for understanding how traits manifest in offspring and how they can skip generations if recessive alleles are carried by parents.

Genotype and Phenotype

The genotype refers to the genetic makeup of an organism, specifically the alleles it possesses for a particular trait, while the phenotype is the observable expression of that genotype. Mendel's work highlighted the relationship between genotype and phenotype, demonstrating how different combinations of alleles can result in varying physical traits, which are then passed on to subsequent generations.