1. Genetics
Who is Gregor Mendel?

2. What is Inheritance? A set of traits from a parent or parents.
This science is known as Genetics.
Genetics is the study of Heredity.

3. Heredity
Heredity – passing genetic information from one generation to the next through reproduction.
This information is organized in the form of chromosomes.
Chromosomes are tightly bound DNA ladders.

5. Gregor Mendel
An Austrian Monk who was responsible for working in his monastery garden.
He looked at pea plants
He looked at how the plants bred and what traits were present in each.

6. Plant Anatomy Each plant has male and female parts.
Pollen is the sperm and seeds are the egg.
During fertilization, pollen and seeds join to produce a new cell.

7. Self-Pollinating
Seeds that are self-pollinating inherit all of their characteristics from the single parent that made them.
These plants are considered “true breeders”
True-breeding means they will produce offspring identical to themselves.

8. Offspring
The term offspring refers to the children of two specific parents.
Offspring = +

9. Traits Mendel looked at traits of plants
A trait is a specific characteristic
For example – plant color or size

10. Traits that Mendel Looked at
Seed Shape
Seed Color
Seed Coat Color
Pod Shape
Pod Color
Flower Position
Plant Height

11. Hybrids
Mendel began to bred plants with the different traits to make many combinations.
His original plants were named “P” for the parental generation.
The offspring from these parent plants were called F1. (F stands for filia, the latin word for son or daughter)
When two plants are crossed and produce offspring which have different traits, they are called hybrids.

12. Genes
From this Mendel found that there is something inside the plants that are responsible for their characteristics.
These are called genes.
Genes are information passed from one generation to the next. (DNA!!!!)

13. Think of genes as instructions from each parent.
You get half your genes from your mom and half your genes from your dad.

14. Alleles
Each specific trait, such as plant height, is contained in an allele.
Alleles give information about one individual characteristic.
For example – my allele for hair color says that I have brown hair.

15. Dominance vs. Recessive
The principle of dominance states that some alleles are dominant and some are recessive.
Colorblindness is a recessive allele. It does not show up in many people.

16. For Example
Mendel found that the gene for tallness was a dominant gene. Most of the plants grew to be tall plants.
Short plants contained a recessive gene for shortness because this gene hardly showed up.
He wanted to see if he could make a short plant by having these new plants mate

17. Look at this:

18. Principle or “Law of Dominance”:
When crossing a dominant trait and a recessive trait, the dominant trait will always be expressed.