Question

How many unique gametes could one pea plant produce, assuming no crossing over events occur?

a) 7
b) 14
c) 28
d) 56

Answer 1

Assuming no crossing over events occur, a pea plant can produce 64 unique gametes.

Step-by-step explanation:

In a diploid organism like a pea plant, each parent contributes one set of chromosomes to the offspring through their gametes. There are seven different characteristics Mendel investigated in the pea plants.

Assuming no crossing over events occur, each characteristic would have two possible alleles, resulting in 27 or 128 possible genotypes. However, half of those genotypes would be identical due to the nature of homozygosity, so the number of unique gametes a pea plant could produce is 128 / 2, which equals 64.