chapter

10 Sexual Reproduction and Genetics

section ●
2 Mendelian Genetics

Before You Read -!). )DEA

Mendel explained how a
Think about what you have learned about the scientific dominant allele can mask the
method. On the lines below, list some of the steps Mendel presence of a recessive allele.
might have used to learn about the natural world. In this What You’ll Learn
section, you will learn about Gregor Mendel’s experiments. ■ the law of segregation and the
Make an hypothesis, follow a method, write the results, state a law
law of independent assortment
■ how to use a Punnett square

Read to Learn
Check for Understanding
How Genetics Began As you read this section,
Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Gregor Mendel, an Austrian Monk, lived in the 1800s. He highlight any parts you do not
experimented with pea plants in the monastery gardens. understand. After you have read
the section, reread the parts you
Pea plants usually reproduce by self-fertilization. This have highlighted.
means that the female gamete is fertilized by a male gamete in
the same flower. Mendel discovered a way to cross-pollinate
peas by hand. He removed the male gametes from a flower.
He then fertilized the flower with the male gamete from a
different flower.
Through these experiments, Mendel made several hypotheses
about how traits are inherited. In 1866, he published his
findings. That year marks the beginning of the science of
genetics, the science of heredity. Mendel is called the father
of genetics.
1. Define What is a true-
The Inheritance of Traits breeding plant?
Plants those traits stayed
Mendel used true-breeding pea plants—plants whose traits the same from generation
stayed the same from generation to generation. Mendel studied to generation
seven traits—flower color, seed color, seed pod color, seed
shape, seed pod shape, stem length, and flower position.

Reading Essentials Chapter 10 Sexual Reproduction and Genetics 109

 What did Mendel find when he crossed pea
plants with different traits?
Mendel called the original plants the parent, or P,
generation. The offspring were called the F1 generation. The
offspring of the F1 plants were called the F2 generation.
In one experiment, Mendel crossed yellow-seeded and
green-seeded plants. All the F1 offspring had yellow seeds. The
green-seed trait seemed to disappear.
Mendel allowed the F1 plants to self-fertilize. He planted
thousands of seeds from these plants. He saw that in these
offspring, the F2 generation, three-fourths of the plants had
yellow seeds and one-fourth had green seeds, a 3:1 ratio.
Mendel performed similar experiments for other traits.
Each time, he observed the same 3:1 ratio.

Picture This
2. Label Fill in the boxes
with the name of each X 0
generation of offspring.
Draw the peas you would GREEN SEED PLANT YELLOW SEED PLANT
expect to see in the empty
pods. Use shading to
indicate a green pea.
X F1

Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

ALL YELLOW SEEDS

F2

 YELLOW SEEDS

 GREEN SEEDS

How did Mendel explain his results?

Mendel proposed that there were two forms of each trait,
and each form was controlled by a factor, which is now called
an allele. An allele (uh LEEL) is a different form of a gene
passed from generation to generation. Yellow-seed plants
3. Apply In Mendel’s have a different allele than green-seed plants.
experiment with green and
Mendel proposed that each trait was controlled by two
yellow seeds, what was the
dominant trait? alleles. The dominant form is the version of the trait that
Yellow seeds appears in the F1 generation. The recessive form is the version
that is hidden in the F1 generation.

110 Chapter 10 Sexual Reproduction and Genetics Reading Essentials

 How does dominance work?
When written, the dominant allele is represented by a capital
letter. The recessive allele is represented by a lowercase letter.
An organism is homozygous (hoh muh ZI gus) if both
alleles for a trait are the same. The organism is heterozygous
(heh tuh roh ZY gus) if the alleles for a trait are different. In
heterozygous organisms, only the dominant trait can be seen.
Dominant alleles mask recessive alleles.
How do genotype and phenotype differ? 4. Predict What would
be the phenotype of a
It is not always possible to know what alleles are present homozygous, recessive
just by looking at an organism. A yellow-seed plant could be (yy) pea plant?
homozygous (YY) or heterozygous (Yy). An organism’s allele Homozygous recessive
pairs are called its genotype (JEE nuh tipe). The expression green
of an allele pair, or the way an organism looks or behaves, is
called its phenotype (FEE nuh tipe).
What is the law of segregation?
Recall that the chromosome number is divided in half
during meiosis. The gametes contain only one of the alleles.
Mendel’s law of segregation states that the two alleles for each
trait separate from each other during meiosis and then unite
during fertilization. When parents with different forms of a
trait are crossed, the offspring are heterozygous organisms 5. Apply True-breeding
known as hybrids (HI brudz).
Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

yellow-seeded and green-

A cross which involves hybrids for a single trait is called a seeded plants are crossed
and produce yellow-seeded
monohybrid cross. Mono means one. The offspring of the offspring. Which of these
cross have a phenotypic ratio of 3:1. plants is a hybrid?
How are two or more traits inherited? All of them
Mendel also performed dihybrid crosses, crossing plants
that expressed two different traits. Mendel crossed yellow,
round-seed plants with green, wrinkle-seed plants. Round
seeds are dominant to wrinkled, just as yellow color is
dominant to green. He wondered whether the two traits
would be inherited together or separately. Members of the F1
generation are dihybrids because they are heterozygous for
both traits.
Mendel found that the traits were inherited independently.
Members of the F2 generation had the phenotypic ratio
of 9:3:3:1—9 yellow round seeds, 3 green round, 3 yellow
wrinkled, and 1 green wrinkled. From experiments with
dihybrid crosses, Mendel developed the law of independent
assortment, which states that alleles distribute randomly
when gametes are made.

Reading Essentials Chapter 10 Sexual Reproduction and Genetics 111

 Punnett Squares
In the early 1900s, Dr. Reginald Punnett developed a square
to predict possible offspring of a cross between two known
genotypes. Punnett squares are useful for keeping track of
genotypes in a cross.
6. Identify What is one What information does a Punnett square
purpose of a Punnett
square?
contain?
Predict the genotype and A Punnett square can help you predict the genotype and
phenotype of the offspring phenotype of the offspring. The genotype of one parent is
written vertically, on the left side of the Punnett square. The
genotype of the other parent is written horizontally, across
the top. A Punnett square for a monohybrid cross contains
four small squares. Each small square represents a possible
combination of alleles in the children.
The Punnett square below shows the results of Mendel’s
experiment with seed color. The Punnett square shows that
four different genotypes are possible—one YY, two Yy, and
one yy. The genotypic ratio is 1:2:1.

Picture This : Z
7. Define Circle the
genotypes in the small
: :: :Z
squares that will give a

Copyright © Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

yellow-seed phenotype.
What will be the phenotypic
ratio in the offspring?
3 yellow, 1 green Z :Z ZZ

How is a Punnett square used for two traits?

Punnett squares also can be used to predict the results of a
dihybrid cross. A Punnett square for a dihybrid cross is larger.
It has 16 boxes to represent 16 allele combinations.

Probability
Genetics follows the rules of probability, or chance. It is like
flipping a coin. The probability of flipping heads is one out of
two. Because of chance, if you flip a coin 100 times, it might
not land heads exactly 50 times, but it will be close.
It is the same in genetics. A cross might not give a perfect
3:1 or 9:3:3:1 ratio. The larger the number of offspring, the
more closely the results will match the ratio predicted by the
Punnett square.

112 Chapter 10 Sexual Reproduction and Genetics Reading Essentials