The Cell and its Inheritance Mrs. Wharton’s Science Class

Walter Sutton Obseved sex cells have HALF the number of chromosomes as body cells Offspring had the exact number of chromosomes in its body cells as its parents Chromosomes in body cells actually occurred in pairs, one chromosome in each pair coming from the male and one from the female

His Conclusions Genes are located on chromosomes Chromosome Theory of Inheritance- genes are carried from parents to offspring on chromosomes

Meiosis How organisms produce sex cells Meiosis- process by which the number of chromosomes are reduced by half to form sex cells- sperm and eggs. During meiosis the chromosome pairs separate and are distributed to two different cells.The resulting sex cells only have half as many chromosomes as the other cells in the organism.

Result When they combine each sex cell contributes half the number of chromosomes to producce offspring with the correct number of chromosomes. Punnett squares show the result of meiosis..

Chromosomes Chromosomes are made up of many genes joined together like beads on a string. Each gene controls a particular trait.