Empirical Analysis of Mendel’s Laws
Objective: To determine if Mendel’s law of segregation and independent assortment genetic principle’s hold true by observing the genotypes of both the F1 and F2 generation of Drosophilia Melanogaster flies and applying the Chi Square analysis to the F2 offspring to see if the our results fall inside or outside statistical variation.
Methods: This experiment was carried out over a five-week process. Each lab bench crossed two parental generations: dumpy females x sepia males, and sepia females x dumpy males. My partner and carried out the sepia x dumpy cross. The following week (week 2), we removed the parents so we wouldn’t confuse the P generation with the eventual F1 offspring. …show more content…
Following classification, we crossed 3 virgin F1 generation females with 5 F1 generation males. Additionally, we also performed a backcross consisting of externally added dumpy, sepia virgin females x F1 males. During week 4, we removed the parents once more. This time, the parents were the F1 generation. Finally, in week 5, we reexamined our vials, classifying and counting the newly acquired F2 generation as well as the backcross to determine phenotype and sex. We were then able to discard our vials and record our F2 results. Our results were to tell us whether or not Mendel’s laws held …show more content…
Included in this publication were two Mendelian principles. The first principal is in regards heredity and states, “two alleles for each trait separate (segregate) during gamete formation, and then unite at random, one from each parent, at fertilization. This is deemed the law of segregation. To go along with this general rule of thumb, Mendel also considered the potential for shuffling of genes during di-hybrid crosses. When there are two individual genes in play, their inheritance pattern act completely independent from one another. Thus, “during gamete formation, different pairs of alleles segregate independently of each