Question

What is the law of independent assortment?

Answer 1

Hint: The alleles of two more genes get sorted into gametes independent of each other. The allele received for one gene does not influence the allele received for another gene. It was proved by Mendel and also called Mendel’s law.

Complete answer:
The law of independent assortment assortments states that the alleles of different genes are inherited independently within the organisms that reproduce sexually. Law of Dominance, law of segregation and law of independent assortment are collectively known as Mendel’s law of inheritance. Independent assortment takes place during the process of meiosis. In this process the chromosomes are halved and are known as haploid. To understand the law of independent assortment, it is very important to understand the law of segregation.
Example of law of independent assortment: Let us consider an example of rabbits with two visible traits. > Fur colour (black or white)
> Eye colour (green or red)
Two hybrid rabbits are crossed, both the rabbits have a genotype BbGg. Before breading each rabbit produced gametes. During this, the alleles are separated and the copy of each chromosome is assigned to different gametes. That means regardless of the parental phenotype, the baby rabbits inherit different combinations of the traits. Alternatively the baby rabbit can have a genotype Bbgg.

Note: Mendel chose to perform a monohybrid cross of a pair of contrasting traits. The observations of the monohybrid cross led to the formulation of the law of segregation and law of dominance. Mendel performed a dihybrid cross taking two contradicting traits together for crossing.