Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance Gregor Mendel, a Morovian monk, in the 1850s conducted experiments on common pea plants and developed a set of inheritance principles that can also be applied to humans. Copyright © Notice: The materials are copyrighted © and trademarked ™ as the property of The Curriculum Center for Family and Consumer Sciences, Texas Tech University.

Principle #1--Dominance After crossing pea plants of pure lineage, Mendel concluded there were dominant genes and recessive genes. For example: When crossing green peas with yellow peas, there was no blending of the colors. The peas were either green or yellow, and in subsequent generations, there was a 3-1 probability that the offspring would be yellow. Copyright © Notice: The materials are copyrighted © and trademarked ™ as the property of The Curriculum Center for Family and Consumer Sciences, Texas Tech University.

Principle #2--Segregation During fertilization, each parent contributes one allele to each gene pair of the offspring. Depending on the allele that was “segregated” from each parent to create a gene pair, the offspring will either receive a dominant trait or a recessive trait (eye color, hair color, etc.) Copyright © Notice: The materials are copyrighted © and trademarked ™ as the property of The Curriculum Center for Family and Consumer Sciences, Texas Tech University.

Principle #3-- Independent Assortment Mendel found that the alleles, responsible for certain traits, are passed on to future generations independently of each other. For example: A child may have traits that neither of the parents had, but were traits that were seen in past generations. Copyright © Notice: The materials are copyrighted © and trademarked ™ as the property of The Curriculum Center for Family and Consumer Sciences, Texas Tech University.