Inheritance And Evolution Flashcards
Define variation
Differences in characteristics among organisms of the same natural population or species
What is continuous variation and its characteristics?
Type of variation in which individuals show a complete gradation from one extreme to the other without any break.
- Has intermediates
- Caused by both environmental conditions and genetic factors
- They are quantitative and can be measured eg height, weight
- They are polygenic (controlled by many genes)
- Gives a normal distribution curve with many organisms lying in the normal
What is discontinuous variation and its characteristics?
Type of variation in which individuals show clear-cut differences with no intermediates between them
- Has no intermediates
- Caused by genetic factors
- They are qualitative and cannot be measured
- They are controlled by a single gene
Give examples of continuous and discontinuous variation
Continuous;
- Skin color
- Height
- Intelligence
- Weight
- Length
Discontinuous;
- Blood types in humans
- Wing lengths in drosophila
- Sex in humans
What is a gene?
A basic unit of inheritance for a given characteristic
What is a phenotype?
The outward appearance of an organism
What is a genotype?
The genetic constitution of an organism with respect to the alleles
What is an allele?
One of a number of alternative forms of the same gene responsible for determining contrasting characteristics
Distinguish between homozygous and heterozygous
Homozygous is a diploid condition in which alleles at a given locus are identical while heterozygous is a diploid condition in which alleles at a given locus are different
What is the dominant allele?
An allele, which influences the appearance of the phenotype, even in the presence of an alternative allele
What is the recessive allele?
An allele, which influences the appearance of the phenotype only in the presence of another identical allele.
Give examples of characteristics that follow monohybrid inheritance
- Height in plants
- Horned and hornless condition in cattle
- Albinism
- Seed shapes
- Seed color
What are characteristics of albinos?
- Pink eyes
- White hair
- Photophobia
What risks associated with albinism?
-Skin cancer
-Sun burns
-Blindness
What is dihybrid inheritance?
Inheritance of two pairs of contrasting characteristics
State examples of the deviations from Mendelian laws
- Linkage (linked genes)
- Multiple alleles
- Incomplete dominance
- Co-dominance
- Lethal genes
- Epistasis
- Gene complex
- Pleiotropy
- Polygenes
Define linked genes
Any two genes carried on the same chromosome
What is linkage?
Linkage is a phenomenon in which genes carried on the same chromosome, fail to separate during meiosis, and are therefore inherited together as inseparable units
True or false;
Chances of crossing over increase with increasing distance of the two gene loci
True
What are recombinants?
These are new gene combinations among offspring, different from the parental genotype.
Define crossover value
This is the percentage of offspring that show recombination
What is epistasis?
This is a condition in which one gene suppresses the effect of another gene located on different loci