Final answer:
Gregor Mendel's experiments with garden peas led to the discovery of the basic principles of genetics, showing that traits are inherited in specific patterns. He used the model organism Pisum sativum for its natural self-fertilization and true-breeding characteristics, which was critical for his research on heredity.
Step-by-step explanation:
The new concept that Gregor Mendel illustrated through his experiments with garden pea hybrids was the fundamental principle of genetics. By experimenting with thousands of garden peas, Mendel was able to uncover how traits are transmitted from parents to offspring. His work on pea plants, reported in his 1865 publication, demonstrated that traits are inherited in specific patterns rather than blended together, as the scientific community of his time incorrectly believed. Through his careful crossbreeding experiments, Mendel observed the inheritance of seven different characteristics, each with two contrasting traits, such as flower color being white or violet. By analyzing the inheritance patterns in the offspring, Mendel formulated the laws of segregation and independent assortment, which are the cornerstones of classical genetics.
Reason for Choosing Garden Peas
One reason that made the garden pea an excellent choice of model system for studying inheritance was that Pisum sativum, the garden pea, naturally self-fertilizes and is highly inbred. This allowed Mendel to use true-breeding lines, which ensured that any observed changes in offspring traits were the result of the inheritance patterns he was studying rather than environmental variations or unintended cross-pollination.