Table of Contents
Definition of Dominance; Mendel’s Laws
Dominance is a term used in genetics to describe a situation in which one allele of a gene pair is expressed over the other. The dominant allele the one that is expressed, while the recessive allele hidden.
Mendel’s Laws are a set of scientific principles that describe the patterns of inheritance of genetic traits. The laws were first proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865, and they remain the foundation of modern genetics.
Concept of Dominance
Dominance a term used in behavioral biology to describe the degree of control an animal has over resources within its environment.Dominance hierarchy exist in groups of animals where the members interact with one another. In a dominance hierarchy, the animal at the top of the hierarchy has the most control over the resources within the environment, while the animal at the bottom of the hierarchy has the least control. Dominance hierarchies can established through aggression or through non-aggressive means such as submission.
Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance
Mendel’s laws of inheritance are the three general laws that describe how hereditary characteristics passed from parents to their offspring. The first law is the law of segregation, which states that each hereditary characteristic is controlled by two factors, or alleles, and that during gamete formation, the alleles for a particular characteristic segregate from each other. The second law is the law of independent assortment, which states that alleles for different characteristics inherited independently of one another. The third law is the law of inbreeding depression, which states that the offspring of closely related parents are more likely to have reduced fitness than the offspring of unrelated parents.
Dominant and Recessive Traits
Dominant and recessive traits are characteristics that passed down from parents to their children. A dominant trait is trait that expressed even if only one copy of gene for that trait is present. A recessive trait is a trait that expressed only if two copies of the gene for that trait are present.
Law of Dominance
Law of dominance states allele for particular characteristic that dominant expressed more often than allele for that same characteristic that is recessive. This law also known as the law of over-dominance.
Law of Segregation
The law of segregation states that alleles for different traits distributed randomly into gametes. This means that each gamete will only contain one allele for each trait.
Reasons for Mendel’s Success
There are a few reasons Mendel was successful in his work. One reason is that he was meticulous in his work. He took the time to carefully crossbreed plants and track their offspring, and he was very systematic in his approach. Additionally, Mendel was lucky that the traits he was studying were dominant. This meant that he could easily see the results of his crosses, and it made his work much easier.
