Gregor Mendel is know as the Father of Genetics who has postulated three Laws of Inheritance - Law of Dominance, Law of Segregation and Law of Independent Assortment.
In this article we will study about:
Who was Mendel?
Gregor John Mendel (1882-1884) was an Austrian monk who performed
breeding experiments between various varieties of pea plants differing in
well-defined characteristics and formulated principles of hereditary.
Mendel is known as "Father of Genetics" and he published a paper with Natural Science Society at Brno in
1866, entitled "Experiments on Plant Hybrids" (Versuche über
plflanzen hybriden).
In the paper, he described:
-
the pattern of transmission of traits in garden pea,
- concluded laws of inheritance
The paper published by Mendel was ignored by scientific community at that time because:
1. His ideas were ahead of his time as cytological basis hereditary were not understood well.
2. He published his work in an obscure journal.
3. Scientific community ignored his work as they were busy arguing about Darwin's theory of evolution on origin of species.
Mendel died in 1884 and 16 years later, in 1900, the three plant
breeders - Hugo de Veries, Karl Correns and Erich Tschermark while working
independently came to similar conclusions as Mendel and confirmed the
importance of Mendel's work.
7 Traits studied by Mendel
7 pair of contrasting characters in pea plant (Pisum sativum) were studied by
Mendel, which are as follows:
1) Flower color - Purple or White
2) Flower position - Axil or Terminal
3) Seed color - Yellow or Green
4) Seed shape - Round or Wrinkled
5) Pod color - Yellow or Green
6) Pod shape - Inflated or Constricted
7) Plant height - Tall or Short
|
Character
|
Dominant trait
|
Recessive Trait
|
|
Flower color
|
Purple
|
White
|
|
Flower position
|
Axial
|
Terminal
|
|
Seed color
|
Yellow
|
Green
|
|
Seed shape
|
Round
|
Wrinkled
|
|
Pod color
|
Green
|
Yellow
|
|
Pod Shape
|
Inflated
|
Constricted
|
|
Plant height
|
Tall
|
Short
|
Why Mendel selected garden pea?
Mendel selected garden pea (Pisum sativum) for performing experiments on
inheritance because:
1. Easily growing plant and available throughout the year
2. Self pollination occurs in pea flowers so the possibility of introduction of outside genetical influences was eliminated
3. Pea flowers are bisexual
4. Can be cross-pollinated artificially
5. Presence of alternative forms of characters
6. Hybrids produced on crossing two varieties are fertile
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