Gregor Mendel Essay Research Paper subject

in inherited characters. Different alleles will create different variations

in inherited characters. The second idea is that for each character, an organism

inherits two genes, one for each parent. So that means that a homologous

loci

may have matching alleles, as in the true-breeding plants of Mendel’s P generation

(parental). If the alleles differ, then there will be F hybrids. The third

idea states that if the two alleles differ, the recessive allele will have

no affect on the organism’s appearance. So an F hybrid plant that has purple

flowers, the dominant allele will be the purple-color allele and the recessive

allele would be the white-color allele. The idea is that the two genes for

each character segregate during gamete production. Independent assortment states

that each member of a pair of homologous chromosome segregates during meiosis

independently of the members of other pairs so that alleles carried on different

chromosomes are different distributed randomly to the gametes.

Mendel’s

work was not recognized right away as an important scientific breakthrough.

In 1868 Mendel was promoted to abbot at the monastery and gave up his

experiments.

Aside from his fellow monks and his students his work was ignored. In fact

the importance of Mendel’s work was not discovered until 1900, sixteen years

after his death. His work was discovered by three European scientists: Hugo

De Vries, Carl Correns, and Erich Tschermak, working independently as they

preformed their own similar experiments. They credited Gregor Mendel as the

discoverer of the laws of heredity.

In conclusion, Mendel’s work was very

important to the science community, and is to this day being studied. All

his work was done without himself ever receiving credit while he was alive.

His laws of heredity are still used today and he now has received credit as

the discoverer of the laws of heredity.

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