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Mendel’s experiments.

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Mendel is known as the father of genetics because of his ground-breaking work on inheritance in pea plants 150 years ago.

Gregor Johann Mendel was a monk and teacher with interests in astronomy and plant breeding. He was born in 1822, and at 21, he joined a monastery in Brünn (now in the Czech Republic). The monastery had a botanical garden and library and was a centre for science, religion and culture . In 1856, Mendel began a series of experiments at the monastery to find out how traits are passed from generation to generation. At the time, it was thought that parents’ traits were blended together in their progeny .

Studying traits in peas

Mendel studied inheritance in peas ( Pisum sativum ). He chose peas because they had been used for similar studies, are easy to grow and can be sown each year. Pea flowers contain both male and female parts, called stamen and stigma , and usually self-pollinate. Self-pollination happens before the flowers open, so progeny are produced from a single plant.

Peas can also be cross-pollinated by hand, simply by opening the flower buds to remove their pollen-producing stamen (and prevent self-pollination) and dusting pollen from one plant onto the stigma of another.

Traits in pea plants

Mendel followed the inheritance of 7 traits in pea plants, and each trait had 2 forms. He identified pure-breeding pea plants that consistently showed 1 form of a trait after generations of self-pollination.

Mendel then crossed these pure-breeding lines of plants and recorded the traits of the hybrid progeny. He found that all of the first-generation (F1) hybrids looked like 1 of the parent plants. For example, all the progeny of a purple and white flower cross were purple (not pink, as blending would have predicted). However, when he allowed the hybrid plants to self-pollinate, the hidden traits would reappear in the second-generation (F2) hybrid plants.

Dominant and recessive traits

Mendel described each of the trait variants as dominant or recessive Dominant traits, like purple flower colour, appeared in the F1 hybrids, whereas recessive traits, like white flower colour, did not.

Mendel did thousands of cross-breeding experiments. His key finding was that there were 3 times as many dominant as recessive traits in F2 pea plants (3:1 ratio).

Traits are inherited independently

Mendel also experimented to see what would happen if plants with 2 or more pure-bred traits were cross-bred. He found that each trait was inherited independently of the other and produced its own 3:1 ratio. This is the principle of independent assortment.

Find out more about Mendel’s principles of inheritance .

The next generations

Mendel didn’t stop there – he continued to allow the peas to self-pollinate over several years whilst meticulously recording the characteristics of the progeny. He may have grown as many as 30,000 pea plants over 7 years.

Mendel’s findings were ignored

In 1866, Mendel published the paper Experiments in plant hybridisation ( Versuche über plflanzenhybriden ). In it, he proposed that heredity is the result of each parent passing along 1 factor for every trait. If the factor is dominant , it will be expressed in the progeny. If the factor is recessive, it will not show up but will continue to be passed along to the next generation. Each factor works independently from the others, and they do not blend.

The science community ignored the paper, possibly because it was ahead of the ideas of heredity and variation accepted at the time. In the early 1900s, 3 plant biologists finally acknowledged Mendel’s work. Unfortunately, Mendel was not around to receive the recognition as he had died in 1884.

Useful links

Download a translated version of Mendel’s 1866 paper Experiments in plant hybridisation from Electronic Scholarly Publishing.

This apple cross-pollination video shows scientists at Plant & Food Research cross-pollinating apple plants.

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21 Mendel’s Experiments

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Explain the scientific reasons for the success of Mendel’s experimental work
Describe the expected outcomes of monohybrid crosses involving dominant and recessive alleles

Image is a sketch of Johann Gregor Mendel.

Johann Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) (Figure 1) was a lifelong learner, teacher, scientist, and man of faith. As a young adult, he joined the Augustinian Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno in what is now the Czech Republic. Supported by the monastery, he taught physics, botany, and natural science courses at the secondary and university levels. In 1856, he began a decade-long research pursuit involving inheritance patterns in honeybees and plants, ultimately settling on pea plants as his primary model system (a system with convenient characteristics that is used to study a specific biological phenomenon to gain understanding to be applied to other systems). In 1865, Mendel presented the results of his experiments with nearly 30,000 pea plants to the local natural history society. He demonstrated that traits are transmitted faithfully from parents to offspring in specific patterns. In 1866, he published his work, Experiments in Plant Hybridization, 1 in the proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brünn.

Mendel’s work went virtually unnoticed by the scientific community, which incorrectly believed that the process of inheritance involved a blending of parental traits that produced an intermediate physical appearance in offspring. This hypothetical process appeared to be correct because of what we know now as continuous variation. Continuous variation is the range of small differences we see among individuals in a characteristic like human height. It does appear that offspring are a “blend” of their parents’ traits when we look at characteristics that exhibit continuous variation. Mendel worked instead with traits that show discontinuous variation . Discontinuous variation is the variation seen among individuals when each individual shows one of two—or a very few—easily distinguishable traits, such as violet or white flowers. Mendel’s choice of these kinds of traits allowed him to see experimentally that the traits were not blended in the offspring as would have been expected at the time, but that they were inherited as distinct traits. In 1868, Mendel became abbot of the monastery and exchanged his scientific pursuits for his pastoral duties. He was not recognized for his extraordinary scientific contributions during his lifetime; in fact, it was not until 1900 that his work was rediscovered, reproduced, and revitalized by scientists on the brink of discovering the chromosomal basis of heredity.

Mendel’s Crosses

Mendel’s seminal work was accomplished using the garden pea, Pisum sativum , to study inheritance. This species naturally self-fertilizes, meaning that pollen encounters ova within the same flower. The flower petals remain sealed tightly until pollination is completed to prevent the pollination of other plants. The result is highly inbred, or “true-breeding,” pea plants. These are plants that always produce offspring that look like the parent. By experimenting with true-breeding pea plants, Mendel avoided the appearance of unexpected traits in offspring that might occur if the plants were not true-breeding. The garden pea also grows to maturity within one season, meaning that several generations could be evaluated over a relatively short time. Finally, large quantities of garden peas could be cultivated simultaneously, allowing Mendel to conclude that his results did not come about simply by chance.

Plants used in first-generation crosses were called P , or parental generation, plants (Figure 2). Mendel collected the seeds produced by the P plants that resulted from each cross and grew them the following season. These offspring were called the F 1 , or the first filial (filial = daughter or son), generation. Once Mendel examined the characteristics in the F 1 generation of plants, he allowed them to self-fertilize naturally. He then collected and grew the seeds from the F 1 plants to produce the F 2 , or second filial, generation. Mendel’s experiments extended beyond the F 2 generation to the F 3 generation, F 4 generation, and so on, but it was the ratio of characteristics in the P, F 1 , and F 2 generations that were the most intriguing and became the basis of Mendel’s postulates.

$The diagram shows a cross between pea plants that are true-breeding for purple flower color and plants that are true-breeding for white flower color. This cross-fertilization of the P generation resulted in an F_{1} generation with all violet flowers. Self-fertilization of the F_{1} generation resulted in an F_{2} generation that consisted of 705 plants with violet flowers, and 224 plants with white flowers.$

Garden Pea Characteristics Revealed the Basics of Heredity

In his 1865 publication, Mendel reported the results of his crosses involving seven different characteristics, each with two contrasting traits. A trait is defined as a variation in the physical appearance of a heritable characteristic. The characteristics included plant height, seed texture, seed color, flower color, pea-pod size, pea-pod color, and flower position. For the characteristic of flower color, for example, the two contrasting traits were white versus violet. To fully examine each characteristic, Mendel generated large numbers of F 1 and F 2 plants and reported results from thousands of F 2 plants.

What results did Mendel find in his crosses for flower color? First, Mendel confirmed that he was using plants that bred true for white or violet flower color. Irrespective of the number of generations that Mendel examined, all self-crossed offspring of parents with white flowers had white flowers, and all self-crossed offspring of parents with violet flowers had violet flowers. In addition, Mendel confirmed that, other than flower color, the pea plants were physically identical. This was an important check to make sure that the two varieties of pea plants only differed with respect to one trait, flower color.

Once these validations were complete, Mendel applied the pollen from a plant with violet flowers to the stigma of a plant with white flowers. After gathering and sowing the seeds that resulted from this cross, Mendel found that 100 percent of the F 1 hybrid generation had violet flowers. Conventional wisdom at that time would have predicted the hybrid flowers to be pale violet or for hybrid plants to have equal numbers of white and violet flowers. In other words, the contrasting parental traits were expected to blend in the offspring. Instead, Mendel’s results demonstrated that the white flower trait had completely disappeared in the F 1 generation.

Importantly, Mendel did not stop his experimentation there. He allowed the F 1 plants to self-fertilize and found that 705 plants in the F 2 generation had violet flowers and 224 had white flowers. This was a ratio of 3.15 violet flowers to one white flower, or approximately 3:1. When Mendel transferred pollen from a plant with violet flowers to the stigma of a plant with white flowers and vice versa, he obtained approximately the same ratio irrespective of which parent—male or female—contributed which trait. This is called a reciprocal cross —a paired cross in which the respective traits of the male and female in one cross become the respective traits of the female and male in the other cross. For the other six characteristics that Mendel examined, the F 1 and F 2 generations behaved in the same way that they behaved for flower color. One of the two traits would disappear completely from the F 1 generation, only to reappear in the F 2 generation at a ratio of roughly 3:1 (Figure 3).

Seven characteristics of Mendel’s pea plants are illustrated. The flowers can be purple or white. The peas can be yellow or green, or smooth or wrinkled. The pea pods can be inflated or constricted, or yellow or green. The flower position can be axial or terminal. The stem length can be tall or dwarf.

Upon compiling his results for many thousands of plants, Mendel concluded that the characteristics could be divided into expressed and latent traits. He called these dominant and recessive traits, respectively. Dominant traits are those that are inherited unchanged in a hybridization. Recessive traits become latent, or disappear in the offspring of a hybridization. The recessive trait does, however, reappear in the progeny of the hybrid offspring. An example of a dominant trait is the violet-colored flower trait. For this same characteristic (flower color), white-colored flowers are a recessive trait. The fact that the recessive trait reappeared in the F 2 generation meant that the traits remained separate (and were not blended) in the plants of the F 1 generation. Mendel proposed that this was because the plants possessed two copies of the trait for the flower-color characteristic, and that each parent transmitted one of their two copies to their offspring, where they came together. Moreover, the physical observation of a dominant trait could mean that the genetic composition of the organism included two dominant versions of the characteristic, or that it included one dominant and one recessive version. Conversely, the observation of a recessive trait meant that the organism lacked any dominant versions of this characteristic.

CONCEPTS IN ACTION

For an excellent review of Mendel’s experiments and to perform your own crosses and identify patterns of inheritance, visit the Mendel’s Peas web lab .

Also, check out the following video as review

Johann Gregor Mendel, “Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden.” Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereines in Brünn , Bd. IV für das Jahr, 1865 Abhandlungen (1866):3–47. [for English translation, see http://www.mendelweb.org/Mendel.plain.html]

Introductory Biology: Evolutionary and Ecological Perspectives Copyright © by Various Authors - See Each Chapter Attribution is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Chapter 8: Introduction to Patterns of Inheritance

8.1 Mendel’s Experiments

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Explain the scientific reasons for the success of Mendel’s experimental work
Describe the expected outcomes of monohybrid crosses involving dominant and recessive alleles.

Watch the interactive video

Johann Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) was a lifelong learner, teacher, scientist, and man of faith. As a young adult, he joined the Augustinian Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno in what is now the Czech Republic. Supported by the monastery, he taught physics, botany, and natural science courses at the secondary and university levels. In 1856, he began a decade-long research pursuit involving inheritance patterns in honeybees and plants, ultimately settling on pea plants as his primary model system (a system with convenient characteristics that is used to study a specific biological phenomenon to gain understanding to be applied to other systems). In 1865, Mendel presented the results of his experiments with nearly 30,000 pea plants to the local natural history society. He demonstrated that traits are transmitted faithfully from parents to offspring in specific patterns. In 1866, he published his work, Experiments in Plant Hybridization, 1 in the proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brünn.

Mendel’s Crosses

Mendel’s seminal work was accomplished using the garden pea , Pisum sativum , to study inheritance. This species naturally self-fertilizes , meaning that pollen encounters ova within the same flower. The flower petals remain sealed tightly until pollination is completed to prevent the pollination of other plants. The result is highly inbred, or “true-breeding,” pea plants. These are plants that always produce offspring that look like the parent. By experimenting with true-breeding pea plants, Mendel avoided the appearance of unexpected traits in offspring that might occur if the plants were not true breeding. The garden pea also grows to maturity within one season, meaning that several generations could be evaluated over a relatively short time. Finally, large quantities of garden peas could be cultivated simultaneously, allowing Mendel to conclude that his results did not come about simply by chance.

Plants used in first-generation crosses were called P, or parental generation , plants ( Figure 8.3 ). Mendel collected the seeds produced by the P plants that resulted from each cross and grew them the following season. These offspring were called the F 1 , or the first filial (filial = daughter or son), generation. Once Mendel examined the characteristics in the F 1 generation of plants , he allowed them to self-fertilize naturally. He then collected and grew the seeds from the F 1 plants to produce the F 2 , or second filial, generation. Mendel’s experiments extended beyond the F 2 generation to the F 3 generation, F 4 generation, and so on, but it was the ratio of characteristics in the P, F 1 , and F 2 generations that were the most intriguing and became the basis of Mendel’s postulates.

Garden Pea Characteristics Revealed the Basics of Heredity

Importantly, Mendel did not stop his experimentation there. He allowed the F 1 plants to self-fertilize and found that 705 plants in the F 2 generation had violet flowers and 224 had white flowers. This was a ratio of 3.15 violet flowers to one white flower, or approximately 3:1 . When Mendel transferred pollen from a plant with violet flowers to the stigma of a plant with white flowers and vice versa, he obtained approximately the same ratio irrespective of which parent—male or female—contributed which trait. This is called a reciprocal cross —a paired cross in which the respective traits of the male and female in one cross become the respective traits of the female and male in the other cross. For the other six characteristics that Mendel examined, the F 1 and F 2 generations behaved in the same way that they behaved for flower color. One of the two traits would disappear completely from the F 1 generation, only to reappear in the F 2 generation at a ratio of roughly 3:1 ( Figure 8.4 ).

Upon compiling his results for many thousands of plants, Mendel concluded that the characteristics could be divided into expressed and latent traits. He called these dominant and recessive traits , respectively. Dominant traits are those that are inherited unchanged in a hybridization. Recessive traits become latent, or disappear in the offspring of a hybridization. The recessive trait does, however, reappear in the progeny of the hybrid offspring. An example of a dominant trait is the violet-colored flower trait. For this same characteristic (flower color), white-colored flowers are a recessive trait. The fact that the recessive trait reappeared in the F 2 generation meant that the traits remained separate (and were not blended) in the plants of the F 1 generation. Mendel proposed that this was because the plants possessed two copies of the trait for the flower-color characteristic, and that each parent transmitted one of their two copies to their offspring, where they came together. Moreover, the physical observation of a dominant trait could mean that the genetic composition of the organism included two dominant versions of the characteristic, or that it included one dominant and one recessive version. Conversely, the observation of a recessive trait meant that the organism lacked any dominant versions of this characteristic.

Concept in Action

For an excellent review of Mendel’s experiments and to perform your own crosses and identify patterns of inheritance, visit the Mendel’s Peas web lab.

Section Summary

Working with garden pea plants, Mendel found that crosses between parents that differed for one trait produced F 1 offspring that all expressed one parent’s traits. The traits that were visible in the F 1 generation are referred to as dominant, and traits that disappear in the F 1 generation are described as recessive. When the F 1 plants in Mendel’s experiment were self-crossed, the F 2 offspring exhibited the dominant trait or the recessive trait in a 3:1 ratio, confirming that the recessive trait had been transmitted faithfully from the original P parent. Reciprocal crosses generated identical F 1 and F 2 offspring ratios. By examining sample sizes, Mendel showed that traits were inherited as independent events.

continuous variation: a variation in a characteristic in which individuals show a range of traits with small differences between them

discontinuous variation: a variation in a characteristic in which individuals show two, or a few, traits with large differences between them

dominant: describes a trait that masks the expression of another trait when both versions of the gene are present in an individual

F 1: the first filial generation in a cross; the offspring of the parental generation

F 2: the second filial generation produced when F 1 individuals are self-crossed or fertilized with each other

hybridization: the process of mating two individuals that differ, with the goal of achieving a certain characteristic in their offspring

model system: a species or biological system used to study a specific biological phenomenon to gain understanding that will be applied to other species

P: the parental generation in a cross

recessive: describes a trait whose expression is masked by another trait when the alleles for both traits are present in an individual

reciprocal cross: a paired cross in which the respective traits of the male and female in one cross become the respective traits of the female and male in the other cross

trait: a variation in an inherited characteristic

1 Johann Gregor Mendel, “Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden.” Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereines in Brünn , Bd. IV für das Jahr, 1865 Abhandlungen (1866):3–47. [for English translation, see http://www.mendelweb.org/Mendel.plain.html]

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Mendel’s Experiments: Teacher's Manual

In this web lab, students experiment with garden pea plants (Pisum sativum) as did Austrian monk Gregor Mendel (1822-1884). Mendel chose to experiment with peas because they possessed four important qualities:

The traits that Mendel studied are listed below:

The Web Lab

This web lab has five sections that are accessible through the “Sections” button in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. Students can explore the entire web lab by clicking through or can jump to specific sections by using the menu. Each section is described below.

Introduction

Mendel is the guide for students throughout the web lab. When he first appears, he says, “Hello. My name is Gregor Mendel. I lived in Austria in the 1800s long before anyone knew about genes and genetics. I experimented with plants to study how traits are passed from parents to offspring ad discovered the basic rules of inheritance that are still used in your textbooks today. Come and try some of my experiments to see what you can discover about inheritance. Click Next to continue.”

The next text reads, “I used pea plants because they grow quickly and easily, and it is easy to see and recognize their different traits.”

Back To Mendel's Experiment Directory

Plant & Cross

This section of the web lab allows students to explore the traits on which Mendel experimented, then cross pea plants to see what offspring they produce.

Mendel urges students to, “Plant five pea plants and observe what they look like.” When students click the “Plant” button, the animated Mendel plants and waters five pea plants. Each of the pea plants quickly sprouts. By rolling over the plants with the cursor, the student can see the color of the pea pod, the shape of the pod, and the color and form of the ripe seed.

All of the different variations of pea plant can be seen in these growing peas, although the plants are randomly chosen each time the application is run. After they have planted and grown five plants, Mendel asks students how many distinguishing traits they see in the plants. On the next screen, he reveals that there are seven different traits:

These traits are all pictured in the plants below:

Students are then asked to experiment with plant crosses. Using the five plants that they grew, they can cross any plant with itself or with another plant. Students may begin to notice some patterns in the ways in which traits are inherited. For example, they may recognize that a plant with white flowers crossed with itself or another plant with white flowers will produce only white flowered plants, while a purple-flowered plant crossed with itself or another purple-flowered plant sometimes produces white-flowered offspring. By encouraging students to look at individual traits during their experimentation, you may find that they begin to recognize these patterns on their own.

After they have made five crosses, the Next button is enabled and students can move on to the following section.

Predict Results

In this section of the web lab, students explore plant crosses and predict what the offspring of these crosses will look like.

A plant with round peas and a random assortment of other traits appears on the screen. Mendel says “Cross this plant with itself. What pea shapes do the offspring have?”

When the student drags the plant into one of the Parent boxes, the Cross button appears. When the student clicks the Cross button, five offspring grow. Some of the offspring from the plant with round peas have wrinkled peas. Mendel then asks, “Were you surprised that a plant with round peas produced some offspring with wrinkled peas?”

A plant with wrinkled peas appears on the screen and students are asked to cross this plant with itself. As before, when the student drags the plant into one of the Parent boxes, the Cross button appears. When the student clicks the Cross button, five offspring grow.

Mendel appears and says, “What did you learn about your peas?” Students will probably recognize that, while a plant with round peas produced some offspring with wrinkled peas, the plant with wrinkled peas produced only offspring with wrinkled peas. This is one key to Mendel’s experimentation—a trait that was not apparent in a parent generation appeared in the F1 generation.

When the student click Next, two plants appear on the screen, both with wrinkled peas. The student is asked to predict the offsprings’ pea shapes (both round and wrinkled; all round; all wrinkled; or can’t predict). Because the allele that produces wrinkled peas is recessive, the offspring of this cross will all have wrinkled peas.

Mendel then explains the concept of dominant and recessive alleles by saying, “By performing my experiments with peas, I learned a lot about genetics and how traits are passed on. I noticed that sometimes offspring seem to have traits that their parents did not show. I called the traits that appeared to mask (or hide) other traits dominant. I called traits that seemed to be hidden recessive.”

In this section of the web lab, students experiment with pea plants to try to discover which alleles are dominant and which are recessive. Using four different pea plants, students can cross plants with themselves or with each other to determine dominance. One strategy that students might employ is to cross plants with themselves—offspring that show a different trait than the parent of such a cross possess the recessive allele (which was hidden by the dominant allele in the parent generation).

Mendel says, “Using these plants, figure out how the trait for flower color is passed on. Which color is dominant, white or purple? This is a pedigree. You can cross plants with themselves or with each other.”

When a student clicks on one of the plant symbols (a white or a black box), the cross button appears. If the student selects two plants, then the two plants are crossed and the offspring appear below. If a student selects only one plant and clicks the Cross button, then the plant self-fertilizes and the offspring appear below. Students can cross plants as many times as they want before deciding which allele is dominant.

Students can explore all seven of the pea traits that Mendel explored in this section. Four pea plants appear in the pedigree and students can select which trait they are looking at with the pulldown menu in the upper left corner of the screen.

When students have determined which alleles are dominant, they can record their choices in their notepads by clicking on the View Notepad button. The Check button allows students to check the answers they have input into their notepads. The following table shows each of the traits and which traits are dominant and which recessive.


Form of ripe seed (R)	Smooth	Wrinkled
	Yellow	Green
Color of flower (P)	Purple	White
Form of ripe pods (I)	Inflated	Constricted
Color of unripe pods (G)	Green	Yellow
Position of flowers (A)	Axial	Terminal
Length of stem (T)	Tall	Dwarf

Flowers located near the middle of the plant.

Traits that appear to mask (or hide) other traits.

A diagram of a family history used for tracing a trait through several generations.

Traits that can be hidden in one generation and then appear in the next.

Flowers located at the ends of the stems.

A distinguishing characteristic.

Biology Article
Mendel Laws Of Inheritance

Mendel's Laws of Inheritance

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.

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

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 is an annual plant, therefore, many generations can be studied within a short period of time.
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 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.

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 .

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 9:3:3:1.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the three laws of inheritance proposed by mendel.

The three laws of inheritance proposed by Mendel include:

Which is the universally accepted law of inheritance?

Law of segregation is the universally accepted law of inheritance. It is the only law without any exceptions. It states that each trait consists of two alleles which segregate during the formation of gametes and one allele from each parent combines during fertilization.

Why is the law of segregation known as the law of purity of gametes?

The law of segregation is known as the law of purity of gametes because a gamete carries only a recessive or a dominant allele but not both the alleles.

Why was the pea plant used in Mendel’s experiments?

Mendel picked pea plants in his experiments because the pea plant has different observable traits. It can be grown easily in large numbers and its reproduction can be manipulated. Also, pea has both male and female reproductive organs, so they can self-pollinate as well as cross-pollinate.

What was the main aim of Mendel’s experiments?

The main aim of Mendel’s experiments was:

To determine whether the traits would always be recessive.
Whether traits affect each other as they are inherited.
Whether traits could be transformed by DNA.

Put your understanding of this concept to test by answering a few MCQs. Click ‘Start Quiz’ to begin!

Select the correct answer and click on the “Finish” button Check your score and answers at the end of the quiz

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Molecular Genetics (Biology): An Overview

Mendel's Experiments: The Study of Pea Plants & Inheritance

Gregor Mendel was a 19th-century pioneer of genetics who today is remembered almost entirely for two things: being a monk and relentlessly studying different traits of pea plants. Born in 1822 in Austria, Mendel was raised on a farm and attended the University of Vienna in Austria's capital city.

There, he studied science and math, a pairing that would prove invaluable to his future endeavors, which he conducted over an eight-year period entirely at the monastery where he lived.

In addition to formally studying the natural sciences in college, Mendel worked as a gardener in his youth and published research papers on the subject of crop damage by insects before taking up his now-famous work with Pisum sativum, the common pea plant. He maintained the monastery greenhouses and was familiar with the artificial fertilization techniques required to create limitless numbers of hybrid offspring.

An interesting historical footnote: While Mendel's experiments and those of the visionary biologist Charles Darwin both overlapped to a great extent, the latter never learned of Mendel's experiments.

Darwin formulated his ideas about inheritance without knowledge of Mendel's thoroughly detailed propositions about the mechanisms involved. Those propositions continue to inform the field of biological inheritance in the 21st century.

Understanding of Inheritance in the Mid-1800s

From the standpoint of basic qualifications, Mendel was perfectly positioned to make a major breakthrough in the then-all-but-nonexistent field of genetics, and he was blessed with both the environment and the patience to get done what he needed to do. Mendel would end up growing and studying nearly 29,000 pea plants between 1856 and 1863.

When Mendel first began his work with pea plants, the scientific concept of heredity was rooted in the concept of blended inheritance, which held that parental traits were somehow mixed into offspring in the manner of different-colored paints, producing a result that was not quite the mother and not quite the father every time, but that clearly resembled both.

Mendel was intuitively aware from his informal observation of plants that if there was any merit to this idea, it certainly didn't apply to the botanical world.

Mendel was not interested in the appearance of his pea plants per se. He examined them in order to understand which characteristics could be passed on to future generations and exactly how this occurred at a functional level, even if he didn't have the literal tools to see what was occurring at the molecular level.

Pea Plant Characteristics Studied

Mendel focused on the different traits, or characters, that he noticed pea plants exhibiting in a binary manner. That is, an individual plant could show either version A of a given trait or version B of that trait, but nothing in between. For example, some plants had "inflated" pea pods, whereas others looked "pinched," with no ambiguity as to which category a given plant's pods belonged in.

The seven traits Mendel identified as being useful to his aims and their different manifestations were:

Flower color: Purple or white.
Flower position: Axial (along the side of the stem) or terminal (at the end of the stem).
Stem length: Long or short.
Pod shape: Inflated or pinched.
Pod color: Green or yellow.
Seed shape: Round or wrinkled.
Seed color: Green or yellow.

Pea Plant Pollination

Pea plants can self-pollinate with no help from people. As useful as this is to plants, it introduced a complication into Mendel's work. He needed to prevent this from happening and allow only cross-pollination (pollination between different plants), since self-pollination in a plant that does not vary for a given trait does not provide helpful information.

In other words, he needed to control what characteristics could show up in the plants he bred, even if he didn't know in advance precisely which ones would manifest themselves and in what proportions.

Mendel's First Experiment

When Mendel began to formulate specific ideas about what he hoped to test and identify, he asked himself a number of basic questions. For example, what would happen when plants that were true-breeding for different versions of the same trait were cross-pollinated?

"True-breeding" means capable of producing one and only one type of offspring, such as when all daughter plants are round-seeded or axial-flowered. A true line shows no variation for the trait in question throughout a theoretically infinite number of generations, and also when any two selected plants in the scheme are bred with each other.

To be certain his plant lines were true, Mendel spent two years creating them.

If the idea of blended inheritance were valid, blending a line of, say, tall-stemmed plants with a line of short-stemmed plants should result in some tall plants, some short plants and plants along the height spectrum in between, rather like humans. Mendel learned, however, that this did not happen at all. This was both confounding and exciting.

Mendel's Generational Assessment: P, F1, F2

Once Mendel had two sets of plants that differed only at a single trait, he performed a multigenerational assessment in an effort to try to follow the transmission of traits through multiple generations. First, some terminology:

The parent generation was the P generation , and it included a P1 plant whose members all displayed one version of a trait and a P2 plant whose members all displayed the other version.
The hybrid offspring of the P generation was the F1 (filial) generation .
The offspring of the F1 generation was the F2 generation (the "grandchildren" of the P generation).

This is called a monohybrid cross : "mono" because only one trait varied, and "hybrid" because offspring represented a mixture, or hybridization, of plants, as one parent has one version of the trait while one had the other version.

For the present example, this trait will be seed shape (round vs. wrinkled). One could also use flower color (white vs. purpl) or seed color (green or yellow).

Mendel's Results (First Experiment)

Mendel assessed genetic crosses from the three generations to assess the heritability of characteristics across generations. When he looked at each generation, he discovered that for all seven of his chosen traits, a predictable pattern emerged.

For example, when he bred true-breeding round-seeded plants (P1) with true-breeding wrinkled-seeded plants (P2):

All of the plants in the F1 generation had round seeds . This seemed to suggest that the wrinkled trait had been obliterated by the round trait.
However, he also found that, while about three-fourths of the plants in the F2 generation has round seeds, about one-fourth of these plants had wrinkled seeds . Clearly, the wrinkled trait had somehow "hidden" in the F1 generation and re-emerged in the F2 generation.

This led to the concept of dominant traits (here, round seeds) and recessive traits (in this case, wrinkled seeds).

This implied that the plants' phenotype (what the plants actually looked like) was not a strict reflection of their genotype (the information that was actually somehow coded into the plants and passed along to subsequent generations).

Mendel then produced some formal ideas to explain this phenomenon, both the mechanism of heritability and the mathematical ratio of a dominant trait to a recessive trait in any circumstance where the composition of allele pairs is known.

Mendel's Theory of Heredity

Mendel crafted a theory of heredity that consisted of four hypotheses:

Genes (a gene being the chemical code for a given trait) can come in different types.
For each characteristic, an organism inherits one allele (version of a gene) from each parent.
When two different alleles are inherited, one may be expressed while the other is not.
When gametes (sex cells, which in humans are sperm cells and egg cells) are formed, the two alleles of each gene are separated.

The last of these represents the law of segregation , stipulating that the alleles for each trait separate randomly into the gametes.

Today, scientists recognize that the P plants that Mendel had "bred true" were homozygous for the trait he was studying: They had two copies of the same allele at the gene in question.

Since round was clearly dominant over wrinkled, this can be represented by RR and rr, as capital letters signify dominance and lowercase letters indicate recessive traits. When both alleles are present, the trait of the dominant allele was manifested in its phenotype.

The Monohybrid Cross Results Explained

Based on the foregoing, a plant with a genotype RR at the seed-shape gene can only have round seeds, and the same is true of the Rr genotype, as the "r" allele is masked. Only plants with an rr genotype can have wrinkled seeds.

And sure enough, the four possible combinations of genotypes (RR, rR, Rr and rr) yield a 3:1 phenotypic ratio, with about three plants with round seeds for every one plant with wrinkled seeds.

Because all of the P plants were homozygous, RR for the round-seed plants and rr for the wrinkled-seed plants, all of the F1 plants could only have the genotype Rr. This meant that while all of them had round seeds, they were all carriers of the recessive allele, which could therefore appear in subsequent generations thanks to the law of segregation.

This is precisely what happened. Given F1 plants that all had an Rr genotype, their offspring (the F2 plants) could have any of the four genotypes listed above. The ratios were not exactly 3:1 owing to the randomness of the gamete pairings in fertilization, but the more offspring that were produced, the closer the ratio came to being exactly 3:1.

Mendel's Second Experiment

Next, Mendel created dihybrid crosses , wherein he looked at two traits at once rather than just one. The parents were still true-breeding for both traits, for example, round seeds with green pods and wrinkled seeds with yellow pods, with green dominant over yellow. The corresponding genotypes were therefore RRGG and rrgg.

As before, the F1 plants all looked like the parent with both dominant traits. The ratios of the four possible phenotypes in the F2 generation (round-green, round-yellow, wrinkled-green, wrinkled-yellow) turned out to be 9:3:3:1

This bore out Mendel's suspicion that different traits were inherited independently of one another, leading him to posit the law of independent assortment . This principle explains why you might have the same eye color as one of your siblings, but a different hair color; each trait is fed into the system in a manner that is blind to all of the others.

Linked Genes on Chromosomes

Today, we know the real picture is a little more complicated, because in fact, genes that happen to be physically close to each other on chromosomes can be inherited together thanks to chromosome exchange during gamete formation.

In the real world, if you looked at limited geographical areas of the U.S., you would expect to find more New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox fans in close proximity than either Yankees-Los Angeles Dodgers fans or Red Sox-Dodgers fans in the same area, because Boston and New York are close together and both are close to 3,000 miles from Los Angeles.

Mendelian Inheritance

As it happens, not all traits obey this pattern of inheritance. But those that do are called Mendelian traits . Returning to the dihybrid cross mentioned above, there are sixteen possible genotypes:

RRGG, RRgG, RRGg, RRgg, RrGG, RrgG, RrGg, Rrgg, rRGG, rRgG, rRGg, rRgg, rrGG, rrGg, rrgG, rrgg

When you work out the phenotypes, you see that the probability ratio of

round green, round yellow, wrinkled green, wrinkled yellow

turns out to be 9:3:3:1. Mendel's painstaking counting of his different plant types revealed that the ratios were close enough to this prediction for him to conclude that his hypotheses were correct.

Note: A genotype of rR is functionally equivalent to Rr. The only difference is which parent contributes which allele to the mix.

What is the main function of the punnett square, what are the three steps of the monohybrid cross, what is it when an allele of a gene masks a recessive..., what is an allele, what is the genotypic ratio in the f2 generation if..., how do genotype and phenotype affect how you look, how to determine an unknown genotype using a test cross, 2 examples of heterozygous traits, genotype & phenotype definition, what is the study of heredity, where do the physical traits we inherit come from, what is the dominant phenotype, what are examples of homozygous dominants, what makes an allele dominant, recessive or co-dominant.

Scitable by Nature Education: Gregor Mendel and the Principles of Inheritance
Biology LibreTexts: Mendel's Pea Plants
OpenText BC: Concepts of Biology: Laws of Inheritance
Forbes Magazine: How Mendel Channeled Darwin

About the Author

Kevin Beck holds a bachelor's degree in physics with minors in math and chemistry from the University of Vermont. Formerly with ScienceBlogs.com and the editor of "Run Strong," he has written for Runner's World, Men's Fitness, Competitor, and a variety of other publications. More about Kevin and links to his professional work can be found at www.kemibe.com.

Find Your Next Great Science Fair Project! GO

12.1 Mendel’s Experiments and the Laws of Probability

Learning objectives.

Describe the scientific reasons for the success of Mendel’s experimental work
Describe the expected outcomes of monohybrid crosses involving dominant and recessive alleles
Apply the sum and product rules to calculate probabilities

Johann Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) ( Figure 12.2 ) was a lifelong learner, teacher, scientist, and man of faith. As a young adult, he joined the Augustinian Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno in what is now the Czech Republic. Supported by the monastery, he taught physics, botany, and natural science courses at the secondary and university levels. In 1856, he began a decade-long research pursuit involving inheritance patterns in honeybees and plants, ultimately settling on pea plants as his primary model system (a system with convenient characteristics used to study a specific biological phenomenon to be applied to other systems). In 1865, Mendel presented the results of his experiments with nearly 30,000 pea plants to the local Natural History Society. He demonstrated that traits are transmitted faithfully from parents to offspring independently of other traits and in dominant and recessive patterns. In 1866, he published his work, Experiments in Plant Hybridization, 1 in the proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brünn.

Mendel’s work went virtually unnoticed by the scientific community that believed, incorrectly, that the process of inheritance involved a blending of parental traits that produced an intermediate physical appearance in offspring; this hypothetical process appeared to be correct because of what we know now as continuous variation. Continuous variation results from the action of many genes to determine a characteristic like human height. Offspring appear to be a “blend” of their parents’ traits when we look at characteristics that exhibit continuous variation. The blending theory of inheritance asserted that the original parental traits were lost or absorbed by the blending in the offspring, but we now know that this is not the case. Mendel was the first researcher to see it. Instead of continuous characteristics, Mendel worked with traits that were inherited in distinct classes (specifically, violet versus white flowers); this is referred to as discontinuous variation . Mendel’s choice of these kinds of traits allowed him to see experimentally that the traits were not blended in the offspring, nor were they absorbed, but rather that they kept their distinctness and could be passed on. In 1868, Mendel became abbot of the monastery and exchanged his scientific pursuits for his pastoral duties. He was not recognized for his extraordinary scientific contributions during his lifetime. In fact, it was not until 1900 that his work was rediscovered, reproduced, and revitalized by scientists on the brink of discovering the chromosomal basis of heredity.

Mendel’s Model System

Mendel’s seminal work was accomplished using the garden pea, Pisum sativum , to study inheritance. This species naturally self-fertilizes, such that pollen encounters ova within individual flowers. The flower petals remain sealed tightly until after pollination, preventing pollination from other plants. The result is highly inbred, or “true-breeding,” pea plants. These are plants that always produce offspring that look like the parent. By experimenting with true-breeding pea plants, Mendel avoided the appearance of unexpected traits in offspring that might occur if the plants were not true breeding. The garden pea also grows to maturity within one season, meaning that several generations could be evaluated over a relatively short time. Finally, large quantities of garden peas could be cultivated simultaneously, allowing Mendel to conclude that his results did not come about simply by chance.

Mendelian Crosses

Mendel performed hybridizations , which involve mating two true-breeding individuals that have different traits. In the pea, which is naturally self-pollinating, this is done by manually transferring pollen from the anther of a mature pea plant of one variety to the stigma of a separate mature pea plant of the second variety. In plants, pollen carries the male gametes (sperm) to the stigma, a sticky organ that traps pollen and allows the sperm to move down the pistil to the female gametes (ova) below. To prevent the pea plant that was receiving pollen from self-fertilizing and confounding his results, Mendel painstakingly removed all of the anthers from the plant’s flowers before they had a chance to mature.

Plants used in first-generation crosses were called P 0 , or parental generation one, plants ( Figure 12.3 ). Mendel collected the seeds belonging to the P 0 plants that resulted from each cross and grew them the following season. These offspring were called the F 1 , or the first filial ( filial = offspring, daughter or son), generation. Once Mendel examined the characteristics in the F 1 generation of plants, he allowed them to self-fertilize naturally. He then collected and grew the seeds from the F 1 plants to produce the F 2 , or second filial, generation. Mendel’s experiments extended beyond the F 2 generation to the F 3 and F 4 generations, and so on, but it was the ratio of characteristics in the P 0 −F 1 −F 2 generations that were the most intriguing and became the basis for Mendel’s postulates.

Garden Pea Characteristics Revealed the Basics of Heredity

In his 1865 publication, Mendel reported the results of his crosses involving seven different characteristics, each with two contrasting traits. A trait is defined as a variation in the physical appearance of a heritable characteristic. The characteristics included plant height, seed texture, seed color, flower color, pea pod size, pea pod color, and flower position. For the characteristic of flower color, for example, the two contrasting traits were white versus violet. To fully examine each characteristic, Mendel generated large numbers of F 1 and F 2 plants, reporting results from 19,959 F 2 plants alone. His findings were consistent.

What results did Mendel find in his crosses for flower color? First, Mendel confirmed that he had plants that bred true for white or violet flower color. Regardless of how many generations Mendel examined, all self-crossed offspring of parents with white flowers had white flowers, and all self-crossed offspring of parents with violet flowers had violet flowers. In addition, Mendel confirmed that, other than flower color, the pea plants were physically identical.

Importantly, Mendel did not stop his experimentation there. He allowed the F 1 plants to self-fertilize and found that, of F 2 -generation plants, 705 had violet flowers and 224 had white flowers. This was a ratio of 3.15 violet flowers per one white flower, or approximately 3:1. When Mendel transferred pollen from a plant with violet flowers to the stigma of a plant with white flowers and vice versa, he obtained about the same ratio regardless of which parent, male or female, contributed which trait. This is called a reciprocal cross —a paired cross in which the respective traits of the male and female in one cross become the respective traits of the female and male in the other cross. For the other six characteristics Mendel examined, the F 1 and F 2 generations behaved in the same way as they had for flower color. One of the two traits would disappear completely from the F 1 generation only to reappear in the F 2 generation at a ratio of approximately 3:1 ( Table 12.1 ).

The Results of Mendel’s Garden Pea Hybridizations
Characteristic	Contrasting P Traits	F Offspring Traits	F Offspring Traits	F Trait Ratios
Flower color	Violet vs. white	100 percent violet		3.15:1
Flower position	Axial vs. terminal	100 percent axial		3.14:1
Plant height	Tall vs. dwarf	100 percent tall		2.84:1
Seed texture	Round vs. wrinkled	100 percent round		2.96:1
Seed color	Yellow vs. green	100 percent yellow		3.01:1
Pea pod texture	Inflated vs. constricted	100 percent inflated		2.95:1
Pea pod color	Green vs. yellow	100 percent green		2.82:1

Upon compiling his results for many thousands of plants, Mendel concluded that the characteristics could be divided into expressed and latent traits. He called these, respectively, dominant and recessive traits. Dominant traits are those that are inherited unchanged in a hybridization. Recessive traits become latent, or disappear, in the offspring of a hybridization. The recessive trait does, however, reappear in the progeny of the hybrid offspring. An example of a dominant trait is the violet-flower trait. For this same characteristic (flower color), white-colored flowers are a recessive trait. The fact that the recessive trait reappeared in the F 2 generation meant that the traits remained separate (not blended) in the plants of the F 1 generation. Mendel also proposed that plants possessed two copies of the trait for the flower-color characteristic, and that each parent transmitted one of its two copies to its offspring, where they came together. Moreover, the physical observation of a dominant trait could mean that the genetic composition of the organism included two dominant versions of the characteristic or that it included one dominant and one recessive version. Conversely, the observation of a recessive trait meant that the organism lacked any dominant versions of this characteristic.

So why did Mendel repeatedly obtain 3:1 ratios in his crosses? To understand how Mendel deduced the basic mechanisms of inheritance that lead to such ratios, we must first review the laws of probability.

Probability Basics

Probabilities are mathematical measures of likelihood. The empirical probability of an event is calculated by dividing the number of times the event occurs by the total number of opportunities for the event to occur. It is also possible to calculate theoretical probabilities by dividing the number of times that an event is expected to occur by the number of times that it could occur. Empirical probabilities come from observations, like those of Mendel. Theoretical probabilities come from knowing how the events are produced and assuming that the probabilities of individual outcomes are equal. A probability of one for some event indicates that it is guaranteed to occur, whereas a probability of zero indicates that it is guaranteed not to occur. An example of a genetic event is a round seed produced by a pea plant. In his experiment, Mendel demonstrated that the probability of the event “round seed” occurring was one in the F 1 offspring of true-breeding parents, one of which has round seeds and one of which has wrinkled seeds. When the F 1 plants were subsequently self-crossed, the probability of any given F 2 offspring having round seeds was now three out of four. In other words, in a large population of F 2 offspring chosen at random, 75 percent were expected to have round seeds, whereas 25 percent were expected to have wrinkled seeds. Using large numbers of crosses, Mendel was able to calculate probabilities and use these to predict the outcomes of other crosses.

The Product Rule and Sum Rule

Mendel demonstrated that the pea-plant characteristics he studied were transmitted as discrete units from parent to offspring. As will be discussed, Mendel also determined that different characteristics, like seed color and seed texture, were transmitted independently of one another and could be considered in separate probability analyses. For instance, performing a cross between a plant with green, wrinkled seeds and a plant with yellow, round seeds still produced offspring that had a 3:1 ratio of green:yellow seeds (ignoring seed texture) and a 3:1 ratio of round:wrinkled seeds (ignoring seed color). The characteristics of color and texture did not influence each other.

The product rule of probability can be applied to this phenomenon of the independent transmission of characteristics. The product rule states that the probability of two independent events occurring together can be calculated by multiplying the individual probabilities of each event occurring alone. To demonstrate the product rule, imagine that you are rolling a six-sided die (D) and flipping a penny (P) at the same time. The die may roll any number from 1–6 (D # ), whereas the penny may turn up heads (P H ) or tails (P T ). The outcome of rolling the die has no effect on the outcome of flipping the penny and vice versa. There are 12 possible outcomes of this action ( Table 12.2 ), and each event is expected to occur with equal probability.

Twelve Equally Likely Outcomes of Rolling a Die and Flipping a Penny
Rolling Die	Flipping Penny
D	P
D	P
D	P
D	P
D	P
D	P
D	P
D	P
D	P
D	P
D	P
D	P

Of the 12 possible outcomes, the die has a 2/12 (or 1/6) probability of rolling a two, and the penny has a 6/12 (or 1/2) probability of coming up heads. By the product rule, the probability that you will obtain the combined outcome 2 and heads is: (D 2 ) x (P H ) = (1/6) x (1/2) or 1/12 ( Table 12.3 ). Notice the word “and” in the description of the probability. The “and” is a signal to apply the product rule. For example, consider how the product rule is applied to the dihybrid cross: the probability of having both dominant traits in the F 2 progeny is the product of the probabilities of having the dominant trait for each characteristic, as shown here:

On the other hand, the sum rule of probability is applied when considering two mutually exclusive outcomes that can come about by more than one pathway. The sum rule states that the probability of the occurrence of one event or the other event, of two mutually exclusive events, is the sum of their individual probabilities. Notice the word “or” in the description of the probability. The “or” indicates that you should apply the sum rule. In this case, let’s imagine you are flipping a penny (P) and a quarter (Q). What is the probability of one coin coming up heads and one coin coming up tails? This outcome can be achieved by two cases: the penny may be heads (P H ) and the quarter may be tails (Q T ), or the quarter may be heads (Q H ) and the penny may be tails (P T ). Either case fulfills the outcome. By the sum rule, we calculate the probability of obtaining one head and one tail as [(P H ) × (Q T )] + [(Q H ) × (P T )] = [(1/2) × (1/2)] + [(1/2) × (1/2)] = 1/2 ( Table 12.3 ). You should also notice that we used the product rule to calculate the probability of P H and Q T , and also the probability of P T and Q H , before we summed them. Again, the sum rule can be applied to show the probability of having just one dominant trait in the F 2 generation of a dihybrid cross:

The Product Rule and Sum Rule
Product Rule	Sum Rule
For independent events A and B, the probability (P) of them both occurring (A B) is (P × P )	For mutually exclusive events A and B, the probability (P) that at least one occurs (A B) is (P + P )

To use probability laws in practice, it is necessary to work with large sample sizes because small sample sizes are prone to deviations caused by chance. The large quantities of pea plants that Mendel examined allowed him calculate the probabilities of the traits appearing in his F 2 generation. As you will learn, this discovery meant that when parental traits were known, the offspring’s traits could be predicted accurately even before fertilization.

1 Johann Gregor Mendel, Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereines in Brünn, Bd. IV für das Jahr , 1865 Abhandlungen, 3–47. [for English translation see http://www.mendelweb.org/Mendel.plain.html]

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Mendel and inheritance.

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Mendel's work was rejected by his fellow scientists while he was alive. It wasn't until later that his work was rediscovered and confirmed through further experimentation.
Mendel was a monk and performed his experiments in the monastery garden. His experimentation largely ended when he was promoted to abbot.
Mendel also ran experiments with honey bees, but found them much more difficult to experiment with.
The idea that an offspring receives one unit of inheritance from each parent is the called the "theory of segregation."
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Distillations magazine

Mendeleev’s legacy: the periodic system.

Mendeleev’s greatest achievement was not the periodic table so much as the recognition of the periodic system on which it was based.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the death of one of the most famous scientists of all time, the Russian chemist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834–1907). The periodic table that he introduced in 1869 was a monumental achievement—a wonderful mnemonic and a tool that serves to organize the whole of chemistry. No longer were students of chemistry obliged to memorize the properties of all the known elements; hereafter they could learn the properties of at least one element from each column and could, in principle, make sound predictions about the other group members.

Arguably, however, Mendeleev’s greatest achievement was not the periodic table so much as the recognition of the periodic system on which it was based. Of the nearly 1,000 variations that have been published since, all are attempts to represent the fundamental rule that after certain but varying intervals the chemical elements show an approximate repetition in their properties.

Mendeleev was hardly the first to arrive at a periodic system. The observation that certain types of elements prefer to combine with certain other types prompted early chemists to classify the elements in tables of chemical affinities. In 1817 the German chemist Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner noticed the existence of groupings of elements in threes, subsequently called triads. The elements in these groupings displayed an important numerical relationship to each other: the equivalent weight (an early substitute for atomic weight) of the middle element had the approximate mean of the values of the two flanking elements. Although Döbereiner worked with the rather crude approximations of atomic weight available at the time, he successfully identified four such groups: strontium, calcium, and barium; bromine, iodine, and chlorine; sodium, lithium, and potassium; and selenium, sulfur, and tellurium. His triads—which would eventually appear on the periodic table in vertical columns—represented the first step in fitting the elements into a system that would account for their chemical properties and reveal their physical relationships.

By the 1860s a number of scientists had moved beyond the triad concept to produce some very respectable periodic systems. The French geologist Alexandre-Émile Béguyer de Chancourtois achieved the first true periodic system in 1862 by arranging the elements by atomic weight in a spiral line wrapped around a metal cylinder. Periodic relationships could be seen by moving vertically down the screw. In 1863 and 1864 two British chemists, John Newlands and William Olding (coincidentally, both born in the same London borough of Southwark), independently published periodic tables that used atomic weight to arrange the elements into groups with analogous properties. A more eccentric spiral periodic system was created by the Danish-born polymath Gustavus Hinrichs in 1864. Hinrichs was intrigued that atomic spectral frequencies, like planetary distances, show whole number ratios, and he concluded that atomic spectra must therefore be an indication of atomic size.

The closest precursor to Mendeleev’s table in both chronological and philosophical terms was developed by Julius Lothar Meyer, a German chemist, in 1864.

Although Meyer stressed physical rather than chemical properties, his table bears remarkable similarity to the one that Mendeleev would develop five years later. For a number of reasons, Meyer’s prominence in the history books never matched Mendeleev’s. There was an untimely delay in the publication of his most elaborate periodic table, and, perhaps more importantly, Meyer—unlike Mendeleev—hesitated to make predictions about unknown elements.

An Element of Order

Tales of Love and Madness from the Periodic Table

Notwithstanding these earlier scientists’ contributions to the idea of periodicity, Mendeleev remains the undisputed champion of the periodic system in the literal sense of its defense, propagation, and elaboration. Mendeleev’s version of the periodic table left the biggest impact on the scientific community, both at the time it was produced and thereafter. In the popular imagination the periodic system invariably and justifiably connects to his name, to the same extent that the theory of evolution connects to Darwin’s name and the theory of relativity to Einstein’s. But what really set Mendeleev’s contribution apart?

From Simple Substances to Abstract Elements

By organizing the elements as he did Mendeleev took a stand on the centuries-old question of the philosophical status of the elements. Unlike some of his contemporaries Mendeleev rejected the suggestion that the periodic system implied the existence of any form of primary matter of which all the elements were composed. He maintained that all elements were strictly individual, indestructible, and irreducible, yet he acknowledged the seeming challenge posed by chemical reactions. Consider the familiar example of sodium chloride: common white table salt does not seem to include either poisonous grey metallic sodium or poisonous green gaseous chlorine.

Aristotle had maintained that all matter was composed of some combination of four abstract elements: earth, fire, water, and air. Although the four elements were themselves unobservable, their relative proportions within a specific substance governed its properties. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his contemporaries challenged this view in the 18th century with new concepts of simple substances. They created a list of 37 simple substances that could be isolated from the decomposition of compounds and could not be further decomposed by any known means.More than any of the other discoverers of the periodic system, Mendeleev was concerned with the philosophical status of the elements. At the beginning of the first volume of his landmark Principles of Chemistry (first English translation, New York, 1891; Osnovy Khimii, first edition, Saint Petersburg, 1869), he wrote, “It is useful in this sense to make a clear distinction between the conception of an element as a separate homogenous substance and as a material but invisible part of a compound” (p. 23). For Mendeleev an element was an entity that was essentially unobservable but formed the inner essence of simple bodies. Whereas a particular element was to be regarded as unchanging, its corresponding simple-body aspect could take many forms such as charcoal, diamond, and graphite in the case of carbon. His periodic table classified abstract elements, not simple substances.

Mendeleev’s genius lay in recognizing that just as it was the element in the abstract sense that survived intact in the course of compound formation, so atomic weight was the only quantity that survived in measurable amounts. He therefore took the step of associating these two features: an element—a —basic substance—was to be characterized by its atomic weight. In a sense an abstract element had acquired a single measurable attribute that would remain unchanged in all its chemical combinations. Here, then, was a profound justification for using atomic weight as the basis for the classification of the elements, unlike any of the precursors to the periodic system.

Toward the end of Mendeleev’s life a growing body of evidence began to challenge his conception of the nature of the elements. Several revolutionary discoveries in physics showed that atoms were, in fact, reducible, and that there was a sense in which all elements are composed of the same primary matter: protons, neutrons, and electrons. Most alarmingly, there was even evidence to suggest that certain elements could be transformed into others through radioactivity.

In 1879 J. J. Thomson identified electrons as the particles constituting cathode rays. By repeating his experiments with cathode rays produced by different elements, he concluded that the same particle was produced in every case, and that this particle was therefore a fundamental constituent of all matter. Shortly thereafter Henri Becquerel and the Curies began to explore the phenomenon of radioactivity. One of the most talented researchers attracted to the study of radioactivity was Ernest Rutherford, who suggested in 1902 that radioactive reactions had the power to transform certain elements into entirely different elements. While fully aware of the possible criticism that such a notion might bring, Rutherford and his colleague Frederick Soddy went so far as to describe this new phenomenon as chemical transmutation, thus evoking the age-old dream of the alchemists.

As if the threat of transmutation were not enough, the discovery of isotopy nearly unraveled the entire periodic system. Scientists’ failure to separate radioisotopes by chemical means threatened both the traditional notion of the elements and the utility of atomic weight as an elemental characteristic. Reflecting on this sad situation in the Annual Report to the London Chemical Society in 1911, Soddy wrote, “Chemical homogeneity is no longer a guarantee that any supposed element is not a mixture of several different atomic weights, or that any atomic weight is not merely a mean number. The constancy of atomic weight, whatever the source of the material, is not a complete proof of homogeneity.”

This situation was clarified somewhat when Soddy and Kasimir Fajans, a Polish-born chemist, independently suggested what became known as the group displacement laws in 1913. Each found that the emission of an alpha particle from an element produces an element located two places to the left on the periodic table, while the emission of a beta particle resulted in a movement one position to the right. For example if an atom of uranium-235 undergoes alpha decay, it forms an atom of thorium-231; meanwhile, an atom of actinium-230 can undergo a beta decay to form an atom of thorium-230. Today we would recognize both products as atoms of the same elements with different atomic weights, but at the time the matter of elemental identity had not yet been settled.

By the 1920s the periodic system was in crisis. Many new isotopes had been discovered over a short period of time so that the number of “atoms,” or fundamental units, suddenly seemed to have multiplied. At this point some chemists, including Fajans, called for abandoning Mendeleev’s periodic system in favor of a more complicated table of isotopes. A way out appeared in the form of atomic numbers assigned by nuclear charge. The Austrian chemist Fritz Paneth championed the atomic number—instead of atomic weight—as the primary characteristic of the elements. Paneth, along with Hungarian chemist György Hevesy, showed that the chemical properties of isotopes of the same element were, for all intents and purposes, identical. Chemists could therefore regard the isotopes of any element as being the same simple substance, even though individual atoms might appear in different isotopic forms.

If the discovery of isotopes threatened to undermine the periodic system, the discovery of the electron explained many of the periodic properties on which the table was based. J. J. Thomson attempted to explain the periodic system by postulating rings of electrons embedded in the positive charge that comprised his plum pudding model of the atom. Thomson’s model was quickly superseded by more sophisticated and elaborate models of atomic structure. However, the origin of our current conception of electronic configurations—an explanatory paradigm in much of chemistry—can be traced to his ideas. Because of Thompson we know that the key to an atom’s properties lies in the number of outer-shell electrons, and that in turn can be deduced—with some exceptions—from an element’s position on the periodic table.

The origin of electronic configuration is frequently and inaccurately attributed to Niels Bohr, who introduced quantum theory to the study of the atom. But Bohr essentially tidied up Thomson’s pre-quantum configurations and took advantage of a more accurate knowledge of the number of electrons each of the elements actually possessed. Further developments in quantum theory, including Pauli’s exclusion principle and Schrödinger’s equation, led to a more rigorous theoretical explanation of the form of the periodic system.

Collectively, these theories established the basic principles by which electronic configurations are assigned: as one moves from left to right on the periodic table, each element contains one additional electron (Bohr’s aufbau principle); each additional electron, with certain exceptions, is added to the atom’s outermost electron shell; only two electrons can fill a single orbital; when electrons fill orbitals of equal energy, they occupy as many different orbitals as possible; and no two electrons in an atom can share the same set of quantum numbers. The rules that govern the assignment of quantum numbers are rigorously explained by quantum theory, with the outcome that the first two shells contain a maximum of two and eight electrons—at long last an explanation for the lengths of the first two periods of the table! Similar considerations for the third and fourth shells predict 18 and 32 electrons respectively, but this is not in accordance with the arrangement of the elements in the periodic table.

The problem is this: the third row of the period table contains 8, not 18, electrons. It turns out that while quantum numbers provide a satisfying deductive explanation of the total number of electrons that any shell can hold, the correspondence of these values with the number of elements that occur in any particular period is something of a coincidence. The familiar sequence in which the s, p, d, and f orbitals are filled has essentially been determined by empirical means. Indeed, Bohr’s failure to derive the order for the filling of the orbitals has been described by some as one of the outstanding problems of quantum mechanics.

The simple textbook explanation—that orbitals are filled in order of their relative energies —has its limitations, as illustrated by the cases of chromium and copper. Both copper and chromium are anomalies in that electrons are added to the 3d orbital before the 4s orbital is closed; that is, their outer shells have configurations of 4s 1 3d 5 and 4s 1 3d 10 instead of the expected 4s 2 3d 4 and 4s 2 3d 9 . Scholars have offered various simple explanations for this experimental finding, the most common of which is that the stability of a half-filled or fully-filled d shell offers the most energetically stable arrangement of electrons. However, since the configurations of the elements in the second transition series follow an even more “anomalous” pattern—not necessarily involving half-filled or fully filled shells—it is clear that the explanation is specific to chromium and copper. Quantum mechanics can generally be used to explain a particular atom’s empirical electronic configuration but that configuration usually cannot be deduced from quantum mechanics alone.

It is something of a miracle that quantum mechanics explains the period table to the extent that it does; we should not let this fact seduce us into believing that it is a deductive explanation. Attempts to explain the details of the periodic table continue to challenge the ingenuity of quantum physicists and quantum chemists, and the periodic table will continue to present a test case for the adequacy of new methods developed in quantum chemistry.

A Lasting Legacy

Our story has now been brought up to date. From its humble beginnings as a set of isolated triads of elements, the periodic system has grown to embody well over 100 elements, and it has survived the discovery of isotopes and the quantum revolution in the study of matter. Rather than being swept aside, it has continued to provide a challenge to the development of ever-more accurate means of calculating the basic properties of the atoms of the chemical elements. A century’s worth of science has consolidated, rather than chipped away at the periodic system’s central role in modern chemistry.

The problem is no longer the validity of Mendeleev’s system, but the best way to represent it. Should it be the original short-form table with 8 columns, the familiar medium-long form with 18 column, or perhaps even a long-form table with 32-column, which more naturally accommodates the rare earth elements into the main body of the table? Alternatively, some favor pyramidal tables while others advocate the left-step form proposed by Charles Janet in the 1920s. Theodor Benfey and Philip Stewart have proposed continuous spiral models. Hundreds, possibly even thousands, of periodic systems have been proposed, and each has its ardent supporters.

Is there one best periodic table? Many chemists argue that the form of the table is of little importance, and that one’s choice depends on what particular aspect of periodicity one wants to depict. But surely this is not the case if, for example, rival versions put helium and hydrogen in radically different places. Such debates will continue for a long time. However, the debate would not exist with out Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, and for the very legacy of periodicity, we are indebted to him.

Eric Scerri is a lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of The Periodic Table: Its Story and Significance (Oxford University Press, 2006), from which this article is derived.

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Mendel Lives: The Survival of Mendelian Genetics in the Lysenkoist Classroom, 1937–1964

Published: 04 December 2013
Volume 24 , pages 101–114, ( 2015 )

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Margaret Peacock 1

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The demise of Soviet genetics in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s has stood for many as a prime example of the damage that social and political dogmatism can do when allowed to meddle in the workings of science. In particular, the story of Trofim Lysenko’s rise to preeminence and the fall of Mendelian genetics in the Soviet Union has become a lasting testament to the dangers of state power and a seemingly blatant manifestation of totalitarianism in practice. In recent years, historians have begun to complicate this story. The purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which this conventional account of state power in Soviet biology, symbolized by the disappearance of Mendel, still holds true. Using middle school textbooks, encyclopedias, and pedagogical journals that were published between 1934 and 1964 this article argues that despite its efforts, the state apparatus was functionally incapable of eradicating genetics from its schools.

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The Transcendence of the Social: Durkheim, Weismann and the Purification of Sociology

Must Introductory Genetics Start with Mendel?

Beyond Barbour: A Theology of Science from Ancient and Modern Thinkers

The Bol’shaia Meditsinskaia Entsiklopediia , like its political-cultural counterpart, the Bol’shaia Entsiklopediia , served as a compendium for acceptable knowledge in the Soviet sphere.

I have not been able to find an official listing of the various translations that were made of this book. I have, however, been able to find this edition of this book in translation in eight different languages in libraries in five difference countries in the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East.

M.I. Mel’nikov wrote the first three editions of the text in 1941, 1946, and 1947. It was then re-written and truncated by Mel’nikov (at the behest of Lysenko) in 1950 and rewritten again in 1951. There is a possibility that another version of the text was also published in 1950. The book then underwent another revision in 1956 and had multiple print runs. In 1957, the text came under the authorship of E.M. Veselov and stayed in print, with multiple runs, until 1962. The book was then replaced with a new text in 1963 when the biology curriculum was revised for Soviet secondary schools. The new text, Obshchaia biologiia (General Biology) was written by Veselov and stayed in print until the early 1970s. These texts were all printed in Moscow by Uchpedgiz.

Lysenko’s seminal text, O Nasledstvennosti i ee Izmenchivosti (On Heredity and Variability), was published first in 1943 with Gossudarstvenno Izdatel’stvo Sel’khoz Literatury, which was the publishing arm responsible for works that were intended for collective agricultural workers (Lysenko 1949 ). It had three editions with the last publishing in 1949 and a print run of 100,000 copies. Michurin’s Izbrannye Raboty (Selected Works) was published by Uchpedgiz, which was in charge of publishing pedagogical textbooks, and which, according to its own description, “offered a foundation for a course on the fundamentals of Darwinism.” (Michurin and Chernenko 1941 ) This article does not examine every edition of these texts and instead pulls from a selected number of them to examine moments where change over time can be seen.

An examination of the primary journal for Soviet education, Sovietskaia Pedagogika (Soviet Pedagogy) shows that discussion of Lysenko and Mendel did not appear until 1937, at which point the Commissariat of Education was clearly pushing for a revision of textbooks and curriculums. How this revision would be accomplished and what it would look like, were unclear, however.

Sovietskaia Pedgagogika reported that triple the number of the previous edition would be printed in 1937. I have been able to track down this edition in eight foreign languages including English, Serbian, French, German, and Dutch. Sovietskaia Pedagogika , 02 August, 1938.

Valerii Soyfer has shown that this project (that worked with spring wheat) did not in fact yield three crops in a year, but in fact ended failure and was quickly replaced with another project (Soyfer 1994 , p. 77).

The text reads, “From this we can conclude that every living organism is in union with the conditions of life. This is one of the fundamental laws of nature. The unity of the body with the necessary conditions of his life is due to mutual coupling of the organism and the environment. This relationship exists because: (1) the organism lives in this environment, taking its particular place; (2) takes from this environment all the necessities of life (food, heat, light, air, etc.), (3) gives to this environment the products of its life (E.A. Veselov 1958 , p. 15).

Loren Graham argues that Lysenko also rejected Mendelianism because it required math (which he could not do) and it represented the academic world from which he had been excluded and shunned (Graham 1987 , p. 117).

The Pedagogical Encyclopedia reflected a similar transformation from framing biological instruction around Lysenkoist principles, to a gradual rehabilitation of Mendel, Weisman, and Morgan. Also cited in RAZRAN ( 1962 , pp. 248–252).

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Peacock, M. Mendel Lives: The Survival of Mendelian Genetics in the Lysenkoist Classroom, 1937–1964. Sci & Educ 24 , 101–114 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-013-9667-5

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Mendel and the culture of commemoration

This year, as part of their centenary celebrations, the Genetics Society teamed up with the Mendelianum (the museum dedicated to Mendel) and hosted International Mendel’s Day for the first time in the UK.

Mendel’s long series of crossing experiments on garden peas were commemorated in 2015 by an international genetics conference in the Mendel Museum of Masaryk University in Brno, two exhibitions in the Mendel Museum, and a third at the State Darwin Museum in Moscow, a full 150 years after he first read his paper ‘Experiments on plant hybridization’ to the natural history society in Brünn, now Brno in the Czech Republic.

These events all affirmed Mendel as the founding father of modern genetics. So, this seems then to be a good moment to reflect again on the ‘culture of commemoration’- how history of science is re-told and why ‘discovery narratives’ of the kind that surround Mendel are promoted.

The lionisation of Mendel in England began soon after the ‘rediscovery’ of his paper around 1900 by three European botanists: de Vries in Holland, Correns in Germany, and Tschermak in Austria. A year later, Cambridge University zoologist William Bateson organised the first English translation of Mendel’s paper for the Royal Horticultural Society and arranged for the translation to be reprinted with modifications on several occasions

Bateson also published one of the earliest biographical notices of Mendel in a preface to his book ‘Mendel’s Principles of Heredity: A defence’ (1909), from material he had collected on a pilgrimage to Brno in 1904.

Bateson’s narrative included many aspects of the history we’re now familiar with – the theme of neglected genius, the sensational rediscovery and confirmation of Mendel’s experiments, and the idea that if Darwin had been able to read Mendel the development of evolutionary science would have been very different. Versions of this story (without any historically informed reflection on the relationship between Darwin and Mendel) appear in the biology textbooks we offer to today’s schoolchildren and students.

For Bateson, commemoration was about bringing Mendel into general recognition. It was a calculated move in a battle he was engaged in with the English biometricians and other biological schools about the methods of biology and the causes of evolution.

In effect, Bateson built his reputation and career with the authority of Mendel behind him.

This relationship is nowhere better expressed than in the portrait of Bateson taken at the Darwin Museum in Moscow in 1925. We know the saying ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ but in this photograph, the bust of Mendel is tellingly perched above William Bateson’s shoulders, with rows of domestic chickens and guinea pigs, the stock-in-trade of contemporary genetics experiments, arranged attractively in display cases behind him.

There is no sign in this image that by this point in his career Bateson had told his son Gregory (named after Mendel) that his life-long devotion to Mendelism had been a mistake; ‘a blind alley which would not throw any light on the differentiation of species, nor on evolution in general’ (Cock, 1980).

Commemoration is a collective endeavour that scientists engage in to build and sustain scientific disciplines (Haddad, 1999). Historians of science sometimes reinforce and at other times work against the discovery narratives that the act of commemoration produces.

Revisionist accounts of the history of Mendelism have revealed how much of the complexity of early 20 th century biology gets forgotten in celebratory narratives. For example, we forget that Mendel’s three ‘re-discoverers’ had serious doubts about how widely Mendel’s laws applied; that within a year de Vries had turned away from Mendelian heredity; and that Tschermak’s interpretation of ‘Mendel’s principles’ differed significantly from Bateson’s.

When re-reading Mendel’s paper we should also be mindful of Ronald Fisher’s (not disinterested) conclusion that ‘Each generation, perhaps, found only in Mendel’s paper what it expected to find … [and] … ignored what did not confirm its own expectations’ (Fisher, 1936).

Mendel commemoration, of course, is not just for scientists or historians of science, it has had many other uses as well.

Bateson attended the first international gathering to memorialise Mendel in Brno in 1910 and was present at the unveiling of the Mendel statue, even giving one of the speeches. He witnessed the ceremonies being used to express German political power and commented that Mendel’s own Augustinian monastery and the Czechs were given a very minor role in the story being told. For example, the Abbot from the monastery was the only one present at the celebrations who had known Mendel personally, but was not included in the speeches. Meanwhile the pre-celebration meeting and exhibition of Mendel documents took place in the ‘German House’ not the monastery, and the monument’s inscription was in German alone (Cock, 1982).

Mendel’s story has also been used to promote science, or at least ‘free thinking’, over religion, notwithstanding his position as a friar and later Abbot within a monastic community.

Take the photograph of Mendel in the Darwin Museum in Moscow, which records a time when it was possible for Mendel to represent the glories of science, within a state cultural modernisation programme that had its museum sculptors busily replacing religious icons with statues of scientists. When genetics later fell out of favour in Russia, Mendel’s clerical position made him doubly suspect.

To me the most surprising history of Mendel commemoration is the one recently unearthed by Ronald Numbers (Numbers, 2015), which documents that for almost a century Mendel and Bateson have been celebrated as creationist heroes.

Mendel was embraced with enthusiasm by antievolutionists after Canadian-born school teacher George McCready Price began promoting Bateson’s statements against evolutionary theory to Christian fundamentalists. Though Bateson’s earlier books had said little about the relationship between Darwin and Mendel, his presidential address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Melbourne, Australia in 1914 began what became a long-standing creationist interest in Mendel. Price (bolstered with quotations from Bateson’s lecture) credited Mendelism with undermining Darwinism. If Mendelism allowed only for the varied re-assortment of hereditary characters already present there was no room for evolution. Later Bateson tried in vain to express his faith in evolution, to neutralise the coverage of his lectures that had provided fodder to the creationist camp. He failed, for Numbers shows that Mendel continues to be commemorated as a ‘creationist hero’ into the 21 st century.

All of this shows that neither Mendel nor Bateson had control over the way their images or writings were represented. To borrow an insight from the Spanish author Javier Marίas, no-one achieves silence, not even after death.

It follows that studying the history of science is more than the interpretation of ‘landmark’ texts but must involve following ideas in circulation- studying both the people speaking on behalf of the dead scientists and the consumers of that information.

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Homemade Deer Jerky Recipe For Beginners [STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE]

Making your own deer jerky at home is a satisfying experience that goes beyond simply enjoying a delicious snack. There's something incredibly rewarding about crafting your own jerky, allowing you to control the dryness and flavor profile to suit your exact tastes.

Whether you’re a hunter who’s recently returned from a successful trip or you’ve come across a bounty of deer meat from a generous friend or family member, transforming that venison into homemade jerky is a fantastic way to savor every bite. Deer meat is naturally lean and rich in flavor, making it perfect for crafting high-quality jerky that you can truly call your own.

Plus, by preserving your venison in this way, you’re extending its shelf life and creating a portable, protein-packed snack that highlights the best of what wild game has to offer!

Although we’ve been specializing in handcrafting commercial beef jerky for nearly 100 years and 4 generations , making homemade jerky in our ovens holds a special spot in our hearts. It’s where we like to experiment with wild flavors, some of which make it into our permanent lineup, like our Dill Pickle or Hot Honey flavored jerky.

This recipe keeps it simple with a basic homemade seasoning, but if you’re looking to enhance your jerky experience, check out our curated selection of beef jerky seasonings. (Coming Soon! Sign-Up For Early Access ).

You can check out our Homemade Beef Jerky Project page for more resources on making your own jerky.

This recipe is designed for beginners, ensuring it’s easy to follow. With straightforward steps and simple ingredients, you’ll be on your way to mastering the art of homemade jerky in no time!

And don’t forget to share your results with our team on our social media platforms ( TikTok , Instagram , or Facebook ). We love to see the final product!

How Deer Jerky Differs From Beef Jerky

Deer Jerky (Left) and Beef Jerky (Right)

Compared to beef, venison has a richer and more robust flavor profile. It has a slightly gamey taste that many find appealing and unique.

Venison is often sourced from hunting wild deer, making it a popular choice for hunters. Although it’s less commonly carried in stores, you can find this meat in specialty butcher shops and online retailers like D'Artagnan , Broken Arrow Ranch , and Fossil Farms .

Venison is typically leaner than beef, resulting in more protein per ounce and a drier texture in the final product. It’s generally lower in fat and calories than beef, which means the jerky may be slightly tougher to chew.

Health Benefits of Venison

With less saturated fat than many other meats, venison is a leaner option that may help support heart health by contributing to lower levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol. Venison from deer that feed on natural forage can also have a higher content of omega-3 fatty acids, known for their anti-inflammatory properties and ability to lower blood pressure and triglyceride levels.

Venison provides an excellent supply of key nutrients such as iron, zinc, and B vitamins, particularly B12. These nutrients play a crucial role in supporting energy levels, boosting immune function, and promoting overall well-being.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAKING DEER JERKY

Making jerky only requires five easy steps, with the sixth being the best part – eating your venison!

Slice the Meat
Mix the Marinade
Marinate the Meat
Lay the Jerky
Cook the Jerky
Enjoy (and Store the Jerky)

1. SLICE THE MEAT

During the dehydration process, the meat will significantly reduce in weight. Therefore, we suggest using a large cut from the deer’s hindquarters. Meat from the hind leg (top round, bottom round, eye of round) is lean and easy to cut, making it the perfect candidate for homemade jerky. You can use the backstrap (loin) cut for this recipe, but some consider it too valuable for jerky.

Whatever cut you decide to use, make sure you trim the venison meat before you slice it for jerky. Fat can spoil and cause the jerky to become rancid, so removing as much fat as possible with a sharp knife is essential. Trim any silver skin, as it is tough and can provide an unpleasant texture to your jerky.

In order to make the meat much easier to slice, we recommend chilling it down in the freezer for 30-60 minutes before.

Slice the partially frozen meat into 1/4” pieces. A smaller thickness will dry out more quickly and be more crispy, while a larger thickness retains more moisture and takes longer to fully dehydrate. We’ve found 1/4” thick pieces to be the sweet spot.

Feel free to slice your venison into any shape you want. It doesn’t matter if they are jerky strips, jerky slabs, or jerky sticks, just make sure they all have a consistent thickness.

We prefer slicing against the grain (perpendicular to muscle fibers) for a more tender jerky, but if you prefer it tougher, feel free to slice with the grain.

Pro Tip: Don’t hesitate to request your local butcher to slice your meat. With the right tools, they can achieve a level of consistency that's hard to replicate at home, even for seasoned cooks.

2. Mix the Marinade

In a large mixing bowl or plastic bag, combine all of the wet and dry ingredients, excluding the meat. Ensure that the sugar is completely dissolved in the marinade.

3. Marinate the Meat

Piece by piece, add the meat to the marinade, then massage it with your hands to ensure even coating.

Pro Tip: Sliced jerky meat can sometimes clump together, resulting in some pieces not being fully coated with marinade. Be sure to mix and massage the meat thoroughly to ensure even coverage. This step also helps enhance the texture of the final jerky.

Cover with plastic wrap (or transfer contents into a resealable plastic bag) and let the meat marinate in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours and up to 24 hours. Knead the meat a few times during this period to ensure the marinade coats the jerky evenly.

Check out our guide on how long to marinate jerky to understand how we arrived at this recommendation. We experimented with marination periods ranging from none to 72 hours and identified the time that produced the best flavor.

4. Lay the Jerky

Preheat your oven to 165°F (74°C). If your oven does not go this low, you can prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon to help regulate the heat.

Be sure to monitor the temperature closely to achieve the best results. If possible, use the convection bake feature to circulate the heat evenly throughout the oven.

Pro Tip: Using a dehydrator provides superior control over temperature and airflow, ensuring consistent results with the ideal texture and flavor. If you're using a dehydrator, arrange the venison strips evenly on the tray and follow the manufacturer’s instructions for drying the jerky.

Before placing the jerky on racks, allow excess marinade to drip off and gently pat the meat dry with paper towels. This helps achieve an even cook and ensures the jerky dries thoroughly.

For easy cleanup, line your baking sheets with aluminum foil and place a wire rack in each pan. Arrange the marinated meat on the rack in a single layer. The pieces can touch, but they should not overlap.

5. Cook the Jerky

Cook the meat for 3 to 6 hours. Start checking the jerky at the 3-hour mark and then every 30 minutes until the jerky reaches the desired doneness. The cooking time will largely depend on the thickness of the jerky strips.

Pro Tip: At the 2-hour mark, rotate the pans from front to back and (if you have more than one pan) move them from top to bottom to ensure even drying.

Commercial jerky makers use specialized devices to measure moisture levels, ensuring their jerky is perfectly dehydrated and shelf-stable. Unfortunately, most home processors don’t have access to this kind of tool.

Instead, you must rely on your senses to determine when your jerky is done. But before you get to that, there are two important variables to consider: the thickness of the meat and the cooking time and temperature.

First, ask yourself:

Did you cook the jerky for the recommended time and temperature?
Are all the pieces of meat uniformly thick? If some pieces are thicker than others, they may require additional time to dry properly.

If you’ve met both of these conditions, you can move on to a visual and textural inspection.

Unlike a traditional venison roast, you can’t easily use a meat thermometer to see if deer jerky is done. Instead, you'll need to rely on visual cues. The jerky should have a dry, leathery appearance. When you bend it, the jerky should flex and show small cracks, but it shouldn’t snap. If it does, it’s over-dried. Think of it like bending a green branch – it should give but not break.

Telling when deer jerky is done takes time and practice. Check out our detailed guide on how to tell when jerky is done.

Now comes the best part – enjoy your homemade deer jerky!

Wait for the jerky to cool before storing it in a resealable plastic bag.

Unlike store-bought jerky, which often has a much longer shelf life, homemade jerky will stay fresh at room temperature for about a week if stored in an airtight container. Odds are, it won’t be around for that long.

If you have any concerns about the dryness level, feel free to store it in the refrigerator for extra precaution.

Learn how to store homemade jerky in this detailed guide.

Classic Homemade Deer Jerky Recipe

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This delicious deer jerky recipe features a well-balanced blend of savory spices, rich soy sauce, and a touch of brown sugar for sweetness. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by the depth of flavor achieved with such simple ingredients, most of which you’ll already have in your pantry.

Brian Bianchetti

Image of Classic Homemade Deer Jerky Recipe

Ingredients

3 LBS Venison

3 TBSP Water

6 TBSP Soy Sauce

3 TBSP Worcestershire Sauce

1 TBSP Brown Sugar

2 TSP Garlic Powder

2 TSP Onion Powder

½ TSP Ground Black Pepper

¼ TSP Cayenne Pepper (Optional for Spice)

Place the meat in the freezer until cold and firm but not frozen (30-60 minutes).

Mix the water, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, ground black pepper, and cayenne pepper (optional) in a large bowl until the sugar dissolves and everything is stirred well.

Remove meat from the freezer and trim all silver skin and external fat. Thinly slice the meat ¼” against the grain using a sharp knife.

Add the meat to the marinade piece by piece, then massage it thoroughly to ensure an even coating.

Cover or transfer to a plastic bag and refrigerate for at least 12 hours and up to 24 hours (the sweet spot is 16).

Heat your oven or dehydrator to 165°F. If the minimum oven temperature is above 165°F, prop the door open and monitor the temperature during the cooking process.

Line the sheet pans with aluminum foil and place a wire rack into each pan.

Remove the meat from the marinade. Lightly pat with a paper towel to remove excess marinade without wiping it clean.

Lay the strips of meat onto the wire racks. Avoid overlapping the meat.

Place in the oven and cook for 3 to 5 hours. Switch the racks from top to bottom and front to back at the 2-hour mark.

Start checking the jerky after 3 hours, then continue checking at 30-minute intervals.

Once the jerky has been cooked, remove it from the oven and let it cool.

Store in an airtight container and enjoy!

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Mendel’s Experiments On Pea Plant
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Mendel's First Set of Experiments
Mendelian genetics ( Mendel's pea plants experiments)

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Mendel and his experiments notes with explanation #bscnotes #bsc2ndyearzoology #science
Mendel's Experiment -Monohybrid and Dihybrid (understanding instead of memorizing)
Mendel Pea Plant Experiment Class 10 Heredity and Evolution
Extension of Mendelian Principles. Genetics
mini mendel takes its first steps
l-3 Mendel experiment class 12 || principle of inheritance and variations in hindi

COMMENTS

Mendel's experiments
Mendel's findings were ignored. In 1866, Mendel published the paper Experiments in plant hybridisation ( Versuche über plflanzenhybriden ). In it, he proposed that heredity is the result of each parent passing along 1 factor for every trait. If the factor is dominant, it will be expressed in the progeny. If the factor is recessive, it will ...
Mendel's Experiments
Mendel's experiments extended beyond the F 2 generation to the F 3 generation, F 4 generation, and so on, but it was the ratio of characteristics in the P, F 1, and F 2 generations that were the most intriguing and became the basis of Mendel's postulates. Figure 2: Mendel's process for performing crosses included examining flower color.
8.1 Mendel's Experiments
Mendel's experiments extended beyond the F 2 generation to the F 3 generation, F 4 generation, and so on, but it was the ratio of characteristics in the P, F 1, and F 2 generations that were the most intriguing and became the basis of Mendel's postulates.
8.1 Mendel's Experiments
Mendel's experiments extended beyond the F 2 generation to the F 3 generation, F 4 generation, and so on, but it was the ratio of characteristics in the P, F 1, and F 2 generations that were the most intriguing and became the basis of Mendel's postulates. Figure 8.3 Mendel's process for performing crosses included examining flower color.
12.1 Mendel's Experiments and the Laws of Probability
Table 12.1. Upon compiling his results for many thousands of plants, Mendel concluded that the characteristics could be divided into expressed and latent traits. He called these, respectively, dominant and recessive traits. Dominant traits are those that are inherited unchanged in a hybridization.
Mendel's Experiments: Teacher's Manual
This section of the web lab allows students to explore the traits on which Mendel experimented, then cross pea plants to see what offspring they produce. Mendel urges students to, "Plant five pea plants and observe what they look like.". When students click the "Plant" button, the animated Mendel plants and waters five pea plants.
Mendel's Laws of Inheritance
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.
Mendel's Experiments: The Study of Pea Plants & Inheritance
Mendel's Experiments: The Study of Pea Plants & Inheritance. Gregor Mendel was a 19th-century pioneer of genetics who today is remembered almost entirely for two things: being a monk and relentlessly studying different traits of pea plants. Born in 1822 in Austria, Mendel was raised on a farm and attended the University of Vienna in Austria's ...
12.1 Mendel's Experiments and the Laws of Probability
Figure 12.3 In one of his experiments on inheritance patterns, Mendel crossed plants that were true-breeding for violet flower color with plants true-breeding for white flower color (the P generation). The resulting hybrids in the F 1 generation all had violet flowers. In the F 2 generation, approximately three quarters of the plants had violet flowers, and one quarter had white flowers.
Biology for Kids: Mendel and Inheritance
Mendel's Experiments Gregor studied seven traits of the pea plant: seed color, seed shape, flower position, flower color, pod shape, pod color, and the stem length. There were three major steps to Mendel's experiments: 1. First he produced a parent generation of true-breeding plants. He made these by self-fertilizing the plants until he knew ...
Mendel's experiment
Hello students!In this video you are going to learn about the Basic concepts of Mendel's experiment and the steps included in it.Watch this :-Genetics | Int...
Mendeleev's Legacy: The Periodic System
Mendeleev was hardly the first to arrive at a periodic system. The observation that certain types of elements prefer to combine with certain other types prompted early chemists to classify the elements in tables of chemical affinities. In 1817 the German chemist Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner noticed the existence of groupings of elements in ...
Mendel: Corroboration of the idea of binary trait coding by ...
The paper by the Augustinian friar Gregor Johann Mendel "Experiments on Plant Hybridization" laid the foundation of the new field of knowledge, genetics, 150 years ago. It claimed that any characteristic is determined by two factors. On the one hand, the Mendelian idea of the binary coding of characteristics was inspired by Christian Doppler, with whose department Mendel had been in ...
Mendel Lives: The Survival of Mendelian Genetics in the ...
The demise of Soviet genetics in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s has stood for many as a prime example of the damage that social and political dogmatism can do when allowed to meddle in the workings of science. In particular, the story of Trofim Lysenko's rise to preeminence and the fall of Mendelian genetics in the Soviet Union has become a lasting testament to the dangers of state power and a ...
Mendel and the culture of commemoration
Mendel's long series of crossing experiments on garden peas were commemorated in 2015 by an international genetics conference in the Mendel Museum of Masaryk University in Brno, two exhibitions in the Mendel Museum, and a third at the State Darwin Museum in Moscow, a full 150 years after he first read his paper 'Experiments on plant ...
Homemade Deer Jerky Recipe For Beginners [STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE]
STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAKING DEER JERKY Making jerky only requires five easy steps, with the sixth being the best part - eating your venison! Slice the Meat Mix the Marinade Marinate the Meat Lay the Jerky Cook the Jerky Enjoy (and Store the Jerky) 1. ... It's where we like to experiment with wild flavors, some of which make it into ...

NOTIFICATIONS

Studying traits in peas

Traits in pea plants

Dominant and recessive traits

Traits are inherited independently

The next generations

Mendel’s findings were ignored

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21 Mendel’s Experiments

Mendel’s Crosses

Garden Pea Characteristics Revealed the Basics of Heredity

CONCEPTS IN ACTION

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8.1 Mendel’s Experiments

Mendel’s Crosses

Garden Pea Characteristics Revealed the Basics of Heredity

Concept in Action

Section Summary

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Mendel’s Experiments: Teacher's Manual

The Web Lab

Introduction

Plant & Cross

Predict Results

Mendel's Laws of Inheritance

Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance

Monohybrid Cross

Frequently Asked Questions

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Mendel's Experiments: The Study of Pea Plants & Inheritance

Understanding of Inheritance in the Mid-1800s

Pea Plant Characteristics Studied

Pea Plant Pollination

Mendel's First Experiment

Mendel's Generational Assessment: P, F1, F2

Mendel's Results (First Experiment)

Mendel's Theory of Heredity

The Monohybrid Cross Results Explained

Mendel's Second Experiment

Linked Genes on Chromosomes

Mendelian Inheritance

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Mendel and the culture of commemoration