Final answer:
Mendel's pioneering experiments with pea plants demonstrated that genetic information was carried on chromosomes, establishing essential principles of heredity such as gene segregation and dominance of traits.
Step-by-step explanation:
Mendel's work supported the idea that the genetic information was carried on chromosomes. This content was loaded with insights into how traits are passed down from generation to generation. The fundamental unit of heredity, the gene, is housed on chromosomes within the nucleus of cells. When Mendel crossed two pure-breeding pea plants with differing characteristics, he observed that traits such as tallness, which he defined as dominant, were consistently expressed in the offspring. His observations led to important concepts in genetics, such as dominance, recessive Ness, and the segregation of alleles — variations of genes responsible for different traits.
The carriage of genes on chromosomes was later supported by the work of Walter Sutton and Theodor Boveri, who developed the Chromosomal Theory of Inheritance. Mendel's careful evaluation of pea plants helped establish that each individual has two copies of each gene, one inherited from each parent, which are carried on paired chromosomes. During gamete formation, in a process called meiosis, these chromosomes segregate so that each gamete carries only one copy of each gene. Offspring are formed when two gametes unite, restoring the two copies of each gene.
Mendel's initial work was groundbreaking, but it went unnoticed for many years because the scientific community favored the blending theory of inheritance, which suggested that parental traits were mixed in the offspring. However, Mendel's choice to work with traits exhibiting discontinuous variation allowed him to demonstrate that traits are inherited distinctly, not blended.