Final answer:
Discontinuous variation lends itself to Mendelian explanations.
Step-by-step explanation:
Gregor Mendel's experiments with pea plants were foundational in the field of genetics, providing insight into the inheritance patterns we know as Mendelian inheritance. Mendel worked with traits that showed clear, distinct categories, such as flower color and seed shape, which is characteristic of discontinuous variation.
Unlike continuous variation, where traits result from the cumulative effect of many genes and typically show a range of phenotypes (like human height), discontinuous variation is attributed to a single gene or a few genes, resulting in a limited number of phenotypes with no intermediates.
Furthermore, certain mutations in a single gene, as seen in Mendel's observations, can cause diseases with a clear Mendelian inheritance pattern, such as sickle cell anemia. In some cases, these mutations may confer unforeseen benefits, like resistance to malaria in carriers of the sickle cell trait, illustrating the complexity and evolutionary implications of genetic inheritance.
Mendelian traits can be contrasted with multi-factorial diseases like arthritis, which involve many genes and environmental factors and do not follow Mendelian patterns.
The chromosomal basis of inheritance, proposed by Mendel, helps to explain not just the phenomenon of trait inheritance in individuals, but also patterns of population variation, which includes the distribution of genotypes among populations, such as the homozygous dominant, heterozygous, and homozygous recessive pea plants from Mendel's experiments.