Question

In Mendel's experiment the characteristics of plants; nature of seed coat, flower colour, position of flower, pod colour, stem height etc., chosen by him for his study are
a. Alleles
b. Genotypes
c. Phenotypes
d. All of the above

Answer 1

Hint: Mendel is known as the father of Genetics. He put forward the fundamental theory of inheritance which says the genes are the unit of inheritance and are passed from the parents to the offspring. Mendel in his experiments considered the observable characteristics of the pea plant.

Complete answer:
We are already aware of the fact that the genes are the carrier of heredity and are transferred over generations. The genes are responsible for both the observable traits as well as the non-observable traits. Gregor Mendel is known as the father of heredity. His experiment on the pea plant using the observable traits called the phenotypes have answered the fundamentals of inheritance. Thus we can define phenotype as the observable character of an individual such as height, eye color, blood type etc. are called the phenotype.

The genes that contribute to the phenotypes are known as genotype. Most of the characters are determined by the genotype.

Alleles-An allele is a variant form of gene. These are one or more genes present at the similar location in the chromosome which are responsible for a particular trait. In humans, for a particular trait, there are two alleles out of which each is received from each parent.

Hence the correct answer is option (c).

Note: Mendel put forward the laws of dominance, independent assortment, law of segregation after studying the monohybrid and dihybrid cross. The cross which involves only one character or trait is called a monohybrid whereas the one which involves two traits is known as dihybrid cross.