Inheritance can be defined as the process of how a child receives genetic information from the

parent. The whole process of heredity is dependent upon inheritance and it is the reason that the
offsprings are similar to the parents. This simply means that due to inheritance, the members of the
same family possess similar characteristics.

It was only during the mid 19th century that people started to understand inheritance in a proper
way. This understanding of inheritance was made possible by a scientist named Gregor Mendel, who
formulated certain laws to understand inheritance known as Mendel’s laws of inheritance.

Table of Contents

Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance

Why was Pea Plant Selected for Mendel’s Experiments?

Mendel’s Experiments

Conclusions from Mendel’s Experiments

Mendel’s laws

Key Points on Mendel’s Laws

Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance

Mendels Law of Inheritance

Between 1856-1863, Mendel conducted the hybridization experiments on the garden peas. During
that period, he chose some distinct characteristics of the peas and conducted some cross-
pollination/ artificial pollination on the pea lines that showed stable trait inheritance and underwent
continuous self-pollination. Such pea lines are called true-breeding pea lines.

Also Refer: Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance: Mendel’s Contribution

Why was Pea Plant Selected for Mendel’s Experiments?

He selected a pea plant for his experiments for the following reasons:

The pea plant can be easily grown and maintained.

They are naturally self-pollinating but can also be cross-pollinated.

It has several contrasting characters.

Mendel conducted 2 main experiments to determine the laws of inheritance. These experiments
were:

Monohybrid Cross

Dihybrid Cross

While experimenting, Mendel found that certain factors were always being transferred down to the
offspring in a stable way. Those factors are now called genes i.e. genes can be called the units of
inheritance.

Mendel’s Experiments

Mendel experimented on a pea plant and considered 7 main contrasting traits in the plants. Then, he
conducted both experiments to determine the inheritance laws. A brief explanation of the two
experiments is given below.

Monohybrid Cross

In this experiment, Mendel took two pea plants of opposite traits (one short and one tall) and
crossed them. He found the first generation offspring were tall and called it F1 progeny. Then he
crossed F1 progeny and obtained both tall and short plants in the ratio 3:1. To know more about this
experiment, visit Monohybrid Cross – Inheritance Of One Gene.

Mendel even conducted this experiment with other contrasting traits like green peas vs yellow peas,
round vs wrinkled, etc. In all the cases, he found that the results were similar. From this, he
formulated the laws of Segregation And Dominance.

Dihybrid Cross

In a dihybrid cross experiment, Mendel considered two traits, each having two alleles. He crossed
wrinkled-green seed and round-yellow seeds and observed that all the first generation progeny (F1
progeny) were round-yellow. This meant that dominant traits were the round shape and yellow
colour.

He then self-pollinated the F1 progeny and obtained 4 different traits: round-yellow, round-green,
wrinkled-yellow, and wrinkled-green seeds in the ratio [Link].

Check Dihybrid Cross and Inheritance of Two Genes to know more about this cross.
Dihybrd Cross

After conducting research for other traits, the results were found to be similar. From this
experiment, Mendel formulated his second law of inheritance i.e. law of Independent Assortment.

Conclusions from Mendel’s Experiments

The genetic makeup of the plant is known as the genotype. On the contrary, the physical appearance
of the plant is known as phenotype.

The genes are transferred from parents to the offspring in pairs known as alleles.

During gametogenesis when the chromosomes are halved, there is a 50% chance of one of the two
alleles to fuse with the allele of the gamete of the other parent.

When the alleles are the same, they are known as homozygous alleles and when the alleles are
different they are known as heterozygous alleles.

Also Refer: Mendelian Genetics

Mendel’s laws

The two experiments lead to the formulation of Mendel’s laws known as laws of inheritance which
are:

Law of Dominance

Law of Segregation

Law of Independent Assortment

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Law of Dominance

This is also called Mendel’s first law of inheritance. According to the law of dominance, hybrid
offspring will only inherit the dominant trait in the phenotype. The alleles that are suppressed are
called the recessive traits while the alleles that determine the trait are known as the dominant traits.

Law of Segregation

The law of segregation states that during the production of gametes, two copies of each hereditary
factor segregate so that offspring acquire one factor from each parent. In other words, allele
(alternative form of the gene) pairs segregate during the formation of gamete and re-unite randomly
during fertilization. This is also known as Mendel’s third law of inheritance.

Law of Independent Assortment

Also known as Mendel’s second law of inheritance, the law of independent assortment states that a
pair of traits segregates independently of another pair during gamete formation. As the individual
heredity factors assort independently, different traits get equal opportunity to occur together.

Key Points on Mendel’s Laws

The law of inheritance was proposed by Gregor Mendel after conducting experiments on pea plants
for seven years.

Mendel’s laws of inheritance include law of dominance, law of segregation and law of independent
assortment.

The law of segregation states that every individual possesses two alleles and only one allele is passed
on to the offspring.

The law of independent assortment states that the inheritance of one pair of genes is independent
of inheritance of another pair.

Also Read: Non-Mendelian Inheritance