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Lani Chung Mr. Nakamura Biology Period 2B 14 April 2012 The Genetics of Parenthood Analysis Questions 1. What percentages does each parent contribute to a childs genotype? 50% 2. Explain how/what part of your procedures represent the process of meiosis. The flipping of the coins is the part of the procedure that represent the process of mitosis because when organisms produce gametes, genes are separated and there is a 50:50 chance whether any one particular egg/sperm contains a certain allele which is a bit like tossing a coin for heads or tails. 3. Using examples from this activity, explain your understanding of the following inheritance patterns: a) Dominant: If an allele is dominant, it will be expressed in the phenotype whether it is heterozygous or homozygous. For example in the case of face shape, because the mother gave a dominant allele coding for round face shape while the father gave a recessive allele coding for square face shape, the child ended up with a round face. b) Recessive: If an allele is recessive, it will only be expressed in the phenotype if it is homozygous, otherwise it will be unexpressed due to a dominant allele if it is in heterozygous form. For example, in the case of cleft chin, both the mother and the father gave recessive alleles coding for an absent cleft chin which caused the absent cleft chin to be expressed in the childs phenotype. c) Incomplete Dominance: When a heterozygous allele pair expresses a mixture of both the dominant and recessive alleles, thus creating an intermediate trait in the phenotype. For example in the case of red tints, because the mother gave a L1 allele coding for dark red tints while the father gave a L2 allele coding for no red tints, the phenotype created an intermediate expression of light red hair tinting. d) Polygenic: When a phenotype is determined by the combination of several gene pairs. For example in the case of skin color, a coin had to be flipped three times for each of the three gene pairs that are involved in determining the skin color of the offspring. The skin

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color that was determined turned out to be a very dark brown skin phenotype which is a result of alleles from multiple genes. e) Epistasis: When a trait is supposed to be expressed but is covered up by another trait which masks the expression of that particular phenotype. For example, in the case of hair color and red tints, although the red tints were supposed to be lightly expressed, the brown hair mixed with blond caused it to be very difficult to see. 4. Compare the predicted phenotype ratio (punnett squares) to the actual ratio (class data) for the following traits: a) Trait #2 (Chin Size): The predicted phenotype ratio for very prominent chin to less prominent chin was 3:1. However, the actual ratio turned out to be 7:4 which is not equivalent to the predicted ratio. b) Trait #8 (Hair Type): The predicted phenotype ratio for curly hair to wavy hair to straight hair was 1:2:1. However the actual ratio turned out to be 2:6:5 which is not equivalent to the predicted ratio. 5. All the children had 2 heterozygous parents. Use the law of independent assortment to explain why there were no identical twins produced. No identical twins were produced because of how slim the chances are for two offspring to end up having all the same traits as each other. This is due to the way you have to flip the coin for each trait which is similar to the law of independent assortment which states that alleles for a trait randomly separate when gametes are formed. These allele pairs are then randomly united at fertilization. What this basically means is that genes are determined separately instead of together. Just because one offspring receives one particular gene, it doesnt necessarily mean that they will also receive any other particular gene.