Question

For the parent plants described in the previous question, what is the probability of obtaining offspring that are short and have purple flowers?

1) 0
2) 1/8
3) 1/4
4) 1/3
5) 1/2

Answer 1

The probability of obtaining offspring that are short and have purple flowers would be 1/8, assuming a 3:1 ratio for both the purple flower trait and the short trait based on Mendel's principles. Option 2 is correct..

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine the probability of obtaining offspring that are short and have purple flowers, we need to apply Mendel's principles of inheritance. Using a Punnett square, we can unravel the chances of traits being passed down if we know the parent genotypes. For simplicity, if 'P' represents the dominant purple flower allele and 'p' the recessive white flower allele, and 'T' represents the dominant tall plant allele with 't' as the recessive short allele, we can calculate the probabilities.

Since three out of four F2 plants have purple flowers, the probability of a purple flower is 3/4. However, without information on the inheritance of plant height, we can't calculate the exact probability for the short trait. If we assume similar 3:1 dominant to recessive ratio for height as well, then the probability of being short would also be 1/4. The combined probability of both traits would then be the product of the individual probabilities: (3/4 for purple) × (1/4 for short), resulting in 1/8.