Biology › Section F · Meiosis and Mendelian heredity › Topic F.5
Laws of inheritance
Mendel's pea-plant ratios distilled into general laws: alleles come in pairs, segregate equally into gametes, and - for genes on different chromosomes - assort independently. Punnett squares predict the offspring, probability methods scale past what any grid can hold, and the exceptions (linkage, epistasis) mark where Mendel's tidy rules bend.
In this topic
- From ratios to laws
- The law of segregation
- The law of independent assortment
- Punnett squares and 9:3:3:1
- Scaling up: forked-line and probability methods
- Multihybrid rules of thumb
- Linked genes break the law
- Epistasis: genes overriding genes
- Worked example: testing assortment with 2,000 plants
- Worked example: a tetrahybrid by probability
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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