Final answer:
Gregor Mendel sought to understand how traits are passed from parents to offspring. Through experimenting with garden peas, he discovered that traits are inherited as distinct units and formulated the principles of Mendelian inheritance.
Step-by-step explanation:
What Gregor Mendel Was Trying to Determine
Gregor Mendel, often recognized as the father of modern genetics, sought to understand how traits are inherited from one generation to the next. Through his meticulous experiments with garden peas, Mendel wanted to uncover whether traits from parents were blended in their offspring or if they remained distinct. He established the foundational principles of Mendelian inheritance using true-breeding pea plants, observing traits like seed color and flower color that could be classified as either dominant or recessive.
By crossing pea plants with different traits and observing the outcomes across several generations, Mendel demonstrated that these traits did not blend but were transmitted as discrete units—later known as genes. He discovered the regular patterns of inheritance and the concept of dominant and recessive traits, concluding that each trait is determined by pairs of heritable factors (now known as alleles). These ground-breaking findings are encapsulated in what we now refer to as Mendel's Laws of Inheritance.
Mendel's work, though not recognized until after his death, set the stage for future discoveries in the field of genetics, including the identification of chromosomes and genes as the carriers of genetic information.