Question

When Mendel first crossed a tall pea plant with a short pea plant, the offspring were always tall. When Mendel crossed the offspring with each other, the second-generation offspring had some short plants. What conclusion can be drawn from this observation?

Answer 1

Mendel's experiments led to the discovery of dominant and recessive traits, with tallness being dominant, and the occurrence of short plants in the F2 generation illustrating the presence of recessive alleles.

Step-by-step explanation:

From Gregor Mendel's experiments, the conclusion that can be drawn is that traits are inherited in a discrete manner, and dominance is a key factor in inheritance. When he first crossed a tall pea plant with a short pea plant, all of the first-generation offspring (F1) were tall, indicating that tallness is the dominant trait. Crossing these tall plants with each other resulted in the second-generation offspring (F2) where some were short. This observation led to the discovery of the recessive trait, which is expressed in the phenotype only when two recessive alleles are present, while the dominant trait only requires one allele to be expressed.