Question

Define dominant and recessive traits.

Answer 1

Hint: Trait refers to an organism specific characteristic. Traits can be examined by genes, environment or by interactions between them. The five widely accepted and common traits are Openness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism.

Complete Answer:
- Dominant refers to the relationship between two versions of a gene. If the alleles (two versions of each gene) of a gene are different, one allele will be expressed as Dominant gene while the other allele effect is called recessive.
- Genetics may be defined as the study of inheritance and it includes a variety of overlapping fields: biochemical genetics, cytogenetics, population genetics, genomics, developmental genetics, clinical genetics, classical genetics, molecular genetics and genetic counseling. Genes refer to the factor of qualities of most human-inherited traits.
- Dominant trait is the first that appears or expressed visibly in the organism. For example- Baldness, Curly hair is dominant over straight hair etc. Dominant allele is expressed in capital letters like A versus a. Each parent provides one allele, the combinations are: AA, Aa, and aa. - The genotype AA and Aa present in offspring will have the dominant trait whereas aa offspring express the recessive trait.
- Recessive trait is present at the gene level but does not show itself in the organism. Some examples of Recessive traits are- O Blood type, Blue eyes, Sickle cell anemia, Albinism, Inability to roll tongue etc.

Note: Two types of traits are Homozygous and Heterozygous. Homo means same and Hetero means different and zygous means certain type of zygote means combination of genetic material. Homozygous means two of the same allele while Heterozygous means two different alleles.