Inheritance, Variation and Evolution Inheritance
Learning Objective
• To explain how characteristics are inherited.
Targeting Assessment Objectives AO1 and AO2
Success Criteria
• To define keywords related to inheritance.
• To explain whether characteristics will be expressed in a person.
• To complete a punnet square diagram.
Inheritance
Can you work out which parent matches each child?
A B C D
1 2 3 4
Keyword Recap
The sex cells. The sperm cell in males and the egg cell in
gamete
females.
Structures that contain DNA. They are found in
chromosome
the nucleus.
gene A small section of DNA on a chromosome.
Keywords
An allele is an alternative form of a gene.
For example, the gene for eye colour has an allele for blue eyes and an allele for brown
eyes.
You inherit one allele from each parent.
The sperm cell contains a The egg cell contains a They fuse during
chromosome with the chromosome with the fertilisation so that the
allele from dad. allele from mum. offspring has two alleles
for each gene.
Keywords
An allele can be dominant or recessive.
A dominant allele is represented with a capital letter.
A
It is always expressed, even if only one copy is present.
A recessive allele is represented with a lower case letter.
It is only expressed if two copies of it are present.
This means that it is not expressed if a dominant allele is a
present.
Since you inherit one allele from each parent, it is possible to
A
have two of the same alleles - or one of each. The aa Aa
combination of alleles is called the genotype. A
Keywords
This genotype has two of the same alleles. It is called
homozygous. The prefix homo- means ‘to be the same’.
A
In this person, the dominant allele (A) will be expressed A
because it is always expressed if it is present.
This is also a homozygous genotype because the alleles are the
same.
aa
In this person the recessive allele (a) will be expressed because
there are two copies of it.
Keywords
This genotype has two different alleles. It is called
heterozygous. The prefix hetero- means ‘different’.
Aa
Pause for Thought
Which allele will be
expressed in this person?
The dominant allele will be expressed.
Dominant alleles are always expressed, even if only one copy
is present.
The recessive allele is not expressed because there needs to be
two copies of a recessive allele for it to be expressed.
Keywords
We said that the combination of alleles is called the genotype.
The characteristic that is expressed because of those alleles is called the phenotype.
What can you tell me about this
person’s phenotype?
• He is male.
• He has brown hair.
• He has green eyes.
• He has Caucasian skin colour.
• He has facial hair.
From Genotype to Phenotype
Let’s continue with our eye colour example.
The allele for brown eyes is dominant, we can represent it as B.
The allele for blue eyes is recessive, we can represent it as b.
What colour eyes will this What colour eyes will this What colour eyes will this
person have? Why? person have? Why? person have? Why?
Modelling Inheritance
Genetic Diagrams
Each person carries two
alleles for each gene in
their cells.
Aa aa
A a
When gametes are formed
they will carry only one
of the alleles.
a
Because this person is heterozygous, Because this person is homozygous, there
there are two possible alleles is only one possible allele that could be
that could be in the gamete. in the gamete.
Each gamete will only
contain one or the other allele.
Genetic Diagrams
Aa aa
A a
a
Aa aa
For this gene, in this couple, there are two possible genotypes that the offspring could
inherit.
Genetic Diagrams
Aa Aa
A a
A a
Well, this diagram got a little complicated
A
A didn’t it!Aa
Aa aa
For this gene, in this couple, there are three possible genotypes that the offspring could
inherit, AA, Aa or aa.
Genetic Diagrams
We can simplify our genetic diagrams using a punnet square. It contains the same
information, but without the arrows that can be easy to confuse.
male genotype
female genotype
Genetic Diagrams
The father has the
genotype Aa. We put
each of the possible
alleles in here.
male genotype
A a
The mother has the
female genotype
genotype aa. We put a Aa aa
each of the possible
alleles in here.
Aa aa
a
50% of the offspring 50% of the offspring
will have the genotype will have the genotype
Aa. aa.
Probability
What is the probability of this couple having
a child with the aa genotype?
male genotype
A a 25%
female genotype
A Aa How else can we write the probability?
A
A
0.25, ¼, 1:3
Aa aa
a
What is the probability of the couple having
a child who carries at least one dominant
allele?
75%, 0.75, ¾, 3:1
Keyword Splat
recessive
heterozygous gene
genotype
allele homozygous
dominant phenotype
