Genetics is the study of genes, heredity, and genetic variation in living organisms. Genes are the units of inheritance that determine the traits of an organism. Gregor Mendel, a 19th-century monk, is considered the father of genetics because of his work on pea plants, which led to the discovery of the fundamental laws of inheritance. Mendels laws of inheritance include the law of dominance, the law of segregation, and the law of independent assortment/12%3A_Mendels_Experiments_and_Heredity/12.03%3A_Laws_of_Inheritance/12.3A%3A_Mendels_Laws_of_Heredity).
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Law of Dominance: This law states that 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/12%3A_Mendels_Experiments_and_Heredity/12.03%3A_Laws_of_Inheritance/12.3A%3A_Mendels_Laws_of_Heredity).
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Law of Segregation: This law states that each inherited trait is defined by a gene pair. Parental genes are randomly separated to the sex cells so that sex cells contain only one gene of the pair. Offspring, therefore, inherit one genetic allele from each parent when sex cells unite in fertilization/12%3A_Mendels_Experiments_and_Heredity/12.03%3A_Laws_of_Inheritance/12.3A%3A_Mendels_Laws_of_Heredity).
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Law of Independent Assortment: This law states that genes for different traits are sorted separately from one another so that the inheritance of one trait is not dependent on the inheritance of another/12%3A_Mendels_Experiments_and_Heredity/12.03%3A_Laws_of_Inheritance/12.3A%3A_Mendels_Laws_of_Heredity).
Mendels laws of inheritance were derived from his experiments on pea plants, where he cultivated and tested some 28,000 pea plants/12%3A_Mendels_Experiments_and_Heredity/12.03%3A_Laws_of_Inheritance/12.3A%3A_Mendels_Laws_of_Heredity). Mendels work and his laws of inheritance were not appreciated in his time, but they became widely accepted after their rediscovery in 1900.
