Mendel's Peas

[Procrastinate]

I have had two Multiple Choice questions that have been bugging me all day:

1. Mendel's Law of Segregation States that:
a.) two traits for each character segregate during gamete production
b.) two traits for each character combine during gamete production
c.) homozygous plants must be grown apart
d.) heterozygous plants have an advantage over homozygous
e.) None of the above.

Obviously b, c and d are out of the picture.

However, I read in my notes that "Two alleles for each character segregate during gamete production."
So does one allele equal to one trait or is a trait a combination of different alleles? This is what has been confusing me all day.

Secondly:
2. Which of the following is a significant finding that Gregor Mendel drew form his research?
a.) There is considerable genetic variation in garden peas.
b.) Traits are apparent because discrete genetic units (alleles) are inherited, one from each parent.
c.) Dominant genes occur more frequently than recessive ones.
d.) Genes are compoesd of DNA.
e.) An organism that is homozygous recessive will die.

I chose b but a is also perfectly right. However, is "b" more right as that was the major finding?

[Darby]

Question one is badly written, but it seems clear that "character" is equivalent to "gene," so "trait" probably equals "allele." Does the terminology match up with the rest of the source the question is drawn on?

Since Mendel focused on dominant-recessive pairs (the simplest things to work the math out on), he didn't really work on wide variation traits, or find lots of alleles for particular genes, so "a" doesn't really fit.

[DRT23]

1) a. character = gene and trait = allele

2) b. significant finding wasn't 'considerable genetic variation' because he found mathematical reasioning behind inheritence. Besides, considerable variation is visible on phenotype and you don't need to find out what goes behind the scene

[Procrastinate]

[quote="DRT23"]1) a. character = gene and trait = allele
/quote]

So if I had a heterozygous dominant set of alleles, then would that mean I would have one trait or two traits?

[DRT23]

1) a. character = gene and trait = allele
/quote]

So if I had a heterozygous dominant set of alleles, then would that mean I would have one trait or two traits?

You would have 2 traits in genotype and 1 character (dominant one) in phenotype.