Question

how do Mendel's experiment show that traits are inherited independently ?

Answer 1

Mendel performed an experiments in which he took a tall plant with round seeds and a short plant with wrinkled-seeds. In F1, They were all tall and had round seeds. Tallness and round seeds were thus dominant traits. When, he used these F1 progeny to generate F2 progeny by self-pollination, he found that some F2 progeny were tall plants with round seeds, and some were short plants with wrinkled seeds. At the same time there tall plants, but had wrinkled seeds, while others were short, but had round seeds. Thus, Mendel’s experiments show that the tall/short trait and the round seed/wrinkled seed trait are independently inherited.

Answer 2

Mendel's experiment that showed that the traits can be inherited independently is when he conducted a dihybrid cross.

• Gregor Mendel conducted several experiments on pea plants to understand the basic concepts of inheritance.

• He studied the inheritance pattern in Pisum sativum.

• When two pairs of contrasting traits are crossed then the crossing is known as a dihybrid cross.

• An example of a dihybrid cross is yellow colored and round seeds are the first trait and green colored and wrinkled seed.

• The F2 generation showed the presence of yellow wrinkled, green round, wrinkled green, and yellow round.

• This indicates that the traits are inherited independently.