Mendel's Work Flashcards

All 6 cards in this deck

What organism did Gregor Mendel use in his breeding experiments, and what did he investigate?

Pea plants; he investigated how characteristics such as seed shape, flower colour and plant height are passed to offspring.

What did Mendel observe when he crossed pure-breeding round-seeded pea plants with wrinkled-seeded pea plants, then bred those offspring together?

The first generation were all round-seeded; the next generation were round : wrinkled in a 3 : 1 ratio.

What did Mendel conclude about how characteristics are inherited?

Characteristics are controlled by pairs of separate 'units of inheritance', one inherited from each parent, and one unit can be dominant over the other.

What are Mendel's 'units of inheritance' now called?

Genes — with different versions of a gene called alleles.

Why was Mendel's work not accepted by other scientists at the time?

Chromosomes, genes and DNA had not yet been discovered, so there was no known mechanism to explain his units of inheritance; he was also little known and his work was not widely read.

True or false? Mendel's ideas about inheritance were recognised as important during his lifetime.

False. They were only accepted decades after his death, once chromosomes and genes had been discovered.