Genetics Introduction
Brandon Huffman
words of genetics and what they mean!
Genotype- the genetic makeup of a cell, an organism, or an individual usually with reference to a specific characteristic under consideration. A genotype consists of two letters that are capital or lower case, an example could be YY or Yy.
Phenotype- the composite of an organism's observable characteristics or traits. these characteristics can be any thing from the color of your hair to the shape of your thumb.
Homozygous- having identical pairs of genes for any given pair of hereditary characteristics. examples for homozygous pairs are XX, yy, tt.
Heterozygous- having dissimilar pairs of genes for any hereditary characteristic. heterozygous pairs can look like these sets, Tt, Yy, Xx.
Dominant
An allele in a gene that is shown over the recessive allele. An example of this is a widows peak. Widows peaks are a dominant trait so they show over non widows peaks.
Recessive
An allele in a gene that is hidden under a dominate gene unless there are no dominate genes. An example is blonde hair to brown hair. Blonde hair is a recessive trait therefore, if you have blonde hair you have two lower case alleles in your hair color gene.
How can someone predict the traits of offspring?
The most basic way of predicting the traits of a child is by finding the genotypes of the parents and filling out a punnet square.
Why is it important to study the principles of inheritance (how traits are passed on to offspring)?
In humans its not all that important but if you're a animal breeder, its essentially your livelihood to be able to breed the animals in the perfect way.