Zea Mays Mendelian Inheritance Pattern

Zea Mays Mendelian Inheritance Pattern Mendelian Genetics Rough Draft Hypothesis I (Theory of Segregation) At anaphase I of meiosis, gamete formation causes a separation of alleles in a diploid organism. When the chromosomes separate each individual will receive an equal chance of inheriting a dominant or recessive allele from the mother or father. Because an albino and green offspring were observed within the same generation, the parents must be heterozygous since two recessive alleles must be inherited by the offspring to express a recessive albino trait following Mendels 3:1 (green: albino) ratio. Hypothesis II (Theory of Independent Assortment) During metaphase I of meiosis, the allele pairs of different genes will independently segregate from each other during the formation of gametes. The inheritance of an allele is independent of other pairs of alleles due to random alignment of chromosomes. Because there were two heterozygous plants for both height and color and were crossed, their offspring will follow Mendels ratio of 9:3:3:1. Materials Methods Obtaining and Maintaining Corn To assess the inheritance patterns of Zea Mays (corn plants) that contain chlorophyll and no chlorophyll and whether the phenotypes height is normal or dwarf in green or albino plants, the study was conducted at Pacific Lutheran Universitys Carol Sheffels Quigg Greenhouse. The trays of corn plants were monitored under artificial lights, controlled temperature, and watered by a student worker for approximately two weeks. Determining Green vs. Albino Seven trays of monohybrid corn plants were observed, and the height and color were used to describe the plants phenotype. Determining Normal vs. Dwarf Green vs. Albino Five trays of dihybrid corn plants were observed to distinguish between green and albino from normal and dwarf. For the dihybrid cross, they were observed using the inheritance of two genes, color, and height. The normal green height plants are dominant presented themselves as tall, spread out, and leaves were narrower, whereas the albino normal height plants are recessive and were portrayed as thin, lack of chlorophyll, and were wrinkly. The green dwarf plants had chlorophyll and were shorter, whereas the albino dwarf plants displayed a wrinkled texture and brown leaves. If some of the corn plants displayed brown or died over the course, they were omitted from this experiment. Data Analysis Determining the phenotypic ratio of the dihybrid cross, of the normal green height as well as green-dwarf, albino-normal height, and albino-dwarf seedlings, their predicted frequencies were determined using a Punnet square to calculate the possible genotypes and albino offspring to be present. Once these were determined, they were computed to conclude the frequencies for the monohybrid and dihybrid cross through a Chi2 test to get the expected and observed values. Results Table 1: Compares heterozygous seedlings that display the predicted number of green (G) and albino (W) when observing the phenotypic traits of chlorophyll and non-chlorophyll plants by Mendels first law of Segregation, (N=424) Zea Mays. Phenotype Predicted # of offspring Observed # of offspring G (chlorophyll) 318 354 W (non-chlorophyll) 106 70 The observed values were close to the phenotype prediction in the monohybrid cross, 75% displayed a dominant trait, and 25% a recessive trait. The expected and observed, (X2= 12, df = 1, p > 0.05), were not statistically significant. Table 2: Compares the predicted and observed phenotypes of green normal and dwarf height and albino normal and dwarf height offspring phenotypes as predicted by Mendels Theory of Independent Assortment to the number of observed phenotypes. Phenotype Predicted # of offspring Observed # of offspring Green / Normal Green / Dwarf Albino / Normal 152 51 51 151 71 15 Albino / Dwarf 16 34 Observed traits of normal vs. dwarf green plants and albino plants, the phenotypic frequencies expected value did not follow Mendels ratio of 9:3:3:1. The observed values, (X2 = 53.5, df = 3, p Conclusions   Ã‚   Our study supports the Mendelian inheritance pattern of Zea Mays that both the parent strains on the monohybrid cross (Table 1) were heterozygous. The expected and observed, (X2= 12, df = 1, p > 0.05), were statistically significant with Mendels first law of segregation expressing green or albino following the phenotype ratio of 3:1. Whereas, the parent strains on the dihybrid cross (Table 2) the observed values for the albino normal and albino dwarf (X2 = 53.5, df = 3, p