Working with garden pea plants, Mendel found that crosses between parents that differed for one trait produced F1 offspring that all expressed one parent’s traits. The traits that were visible in the F1 generation are referred to as dominant, and traits that disappear in the F1 generation are described as recessive. When the F1 plants in Mendel’s experiment were self-crossed, the F2 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 F1 and F2 offspring ratios. By examining sample sizes, Mendel showed that traits were inherited as independent events.
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