A. Early Ideas about Heredity
1. Heredity is the passing of traits from parents to offspring.
2. In the 1850s, Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, performed experiments that
helped answer questions about how traits are inherited.
3. Genetics is the study of how traits pass from parents to offspring.
B. Mendel’s Experimental Methods
1. Pea plants were ideal for genetic studies because they reproduce quickly; they have
easily observed traits; and the experimenter can control which pairs of plants
reproduce.
2. Mendel controlled which plants pollinated other plants.
a. When a(n) true-breeding plant self-pollinates, it always produces offspring with
traits that match the parent.
b. By cross-pollinating plants himself, Mendel was able to select which plants
pollinated other plants.
3. With each cross-pollination Mendel did, he recorded the traits that appeared
in the offspring.
C. Mendel’s Results
1. Mendel’s crosses between true-breeding plants with purple flowers produced plants
with only purple flowers. Crosses between true-breeding plants with white flowers
produced plants with only white flowers.
2. Crosses between true-breeding plants with purple flowers and true-breeding plants
with white flowers produced plants with only purple flowers.
3. The first–generation purple-flowering plants are called hybrid plants.
4. When Mendel cross-pollinated two hybrid plants, the trait that had disappeared
in the first generation always reappeared in the second generation.
5. Mendel analyzed the data from many experiments on seven different traits. He
always noted a 3:1 ratio; for example, purple flowers grew from hybrid crosses three
times more often than white flowers.
D. Mendel’s Conclusions
1. After analyzing the results of his experiments, Mendel concluded that two factors
control each trait.
2. Mendel also proposed that, when organisms reproduce, each reproductive
cell—sperm or egg—contributes one factor for each trait.
3. A genetic factor that blocks another genetic factor is dominant.
These are not my words but I hope that they help you a lot .
