ANT 2000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Epigenetics, Gene Flow, Meiosis
1 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
Ironically, it would take a celibate monk to teach us the secrets of sex. For years mendel conducted experiments with garden peas to determine the rules of inheritance. He hoped that by crossing pure strains of peas he could find patterning in the percentages of plant traits seen in hybrid generations. Through the 19th c. , it was generally believed that inherited traits of offspring resulted from the blending of parents" traits. Even darwin subscribed to this theory, (although blending would have reduced variation) What mendel"s work ultimately showed was that genetic material was neither blended nor destroyed in reproduction; rather, genetic material from each parent retained it individuality. Mendel selected seven traits of pea plants (flower position, pea shape, pea color, pod shape, pod color) and crossbred pure strains for each trait. Started in 1856 crossing 70 purebred; used over 28,000 plants before completing research.
