Mendel's principles of heredity: A defenceMendel, Gregor
Science
Mendel's principles of heredity: A defence
Mendel, Gregor
Heredity; Hybridization; Mendel's law; Weldon, Walter Frank Raphael. Mendel's laws of alternative inheritance in peas
In each of these experiments a certain number of the plants came
constant with the dominant character. For the determination of the
proportion in which the separation of the forms with the constantly
persistent character results, the two first experiments are of especial
importance, since in these a larger number of plants can be compared.
The ratios 1·93 to 1 and 2·13 to 1 gave together almost exactly the
average ratio of 2 to 1. The sixth experiment has a quite concordant
result; in the others the ratio varies more or less, as was only to be
expected in view of the smaller number of 100 trial plants. Experiment
5, which shows the greatest departure, was repeated, and then in lieu
of the ratio of 60 and 40 that of 65 and 35 resulted. _The average
ratio of 2 to 1 appears, therefore, as fixed with certainty._ It is
therefore demonstrated that, of those forms which possess the dominant
character in the first generation, in two-thirds the hybrid character
is embodied, while one-third remains constant with the dominant
character.
The ratio of 3 to 1, in accordance with which the distribution of the
dominant and recessive characters results in the first generation,
resolves itself therefore in all experiments into the ratio of 2 :
1 : 1 if the dominant character be differentiated according to its
significance as a hybrid character or a parental one. Since the members
of the first generation spring directly from the seed of the hybrids,
_it is now clear that the hybrids form seeds having one or other of the
two differentiating characters, and of these one-half develop again the
hybrid form, while the other half yield plants which remain constant
and receive the dominant or recessive characters [respectively] in
equal numbers_.
THE SUBSEQUENT GENERATIONS [BRED] FROM THE HYBRIDS.
The proportions in which the descendants of the hybrids develop and
split up in the first and second generations presumably hold good for
all subsequent progeny. Experiments 1 and 2 have already been carried
through six generations, 3 and 7 through five, and 4, 5, and 6 through
four, these experiments being continued from the third generation with
a small number of plants, and no departure from the rule has been
perceptible. The offspring of the hybrids separated in each generation
in the ratio of 2 : 1 : 1 into hybrids and constant forms.
If _A_ be taken as denoting one of the two constant characters, for
instance the dominant, _a_, the recessive, and _Aa_ the hybrid form in
which both are conjoined, the expression
_A_ + 2_Aa_ + _a_
shows the terms in the series for the progeny of the hybrids of two
differentiating characters.
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