BLG 143 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Pea, Mendelian Inheritance, Model Organism
12 Jan 2017
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Document Summary
Branch of biology, focuses on the inheritance of traits. Model organisms: small, short-lived, inexpensive to care for, produce large # of offspring, easy to manipulate experimentally. Conclusions can be drawn from them that apply to many other species as well. Mendel: 19th century monk, uni of vienna, belonged to agricultural society in brunn, interested in breeding hardier varieties f sheep, fruit trees and vines. Interested in heredity: transmission of traits from parents to offspring. > blending hypothesis > inheritance of acquired characteristics hypothesis. His model organism was the common garden pea; easy to grow, short reproductive cycle, large # of seeds, could control matings, traits were easily recognizable. Prevented this and took the pollen grains from male plant himself and pollinated the female reproductive organs on different plants, performing cross- fertilization. Mendel"s controls: pure lines: produced identical offspring when self-pollinated.
