Drosophila that are homozygous recessive for the apterous
(apt) mutation have no wings. Flies that are homozygous recessive for
the vestigial (vg) mutation have small, nonfunctional wings.
If these traits are alternative alleles of the same gene, what phenotype would
you predict in the offspring from a cross between vestigial and apterous flies?
If instead you obtain all flies with normal wings, what would you hypothesize
about the number of genes that control wing development? Answer
Mendel's paper reporting his results and conclusions included very detailed records of all of the crosses and offspring. The first parts of his paper show that the ratios he measured were not exactly 3:1 or 9:3:3:1. However, the data he shows for the last section is almost exactly what he had predicted. What would be a possible interpretation for this curious phenomenon?
Answer
