Question

A person has to perform crosses for the purpose of studying inheritance of a few traits/ characters. What should be the criteria for selecting the organisms?

Answer 1

Traits and characters

Character is a feature of an individual like height, colour etc. Trait is a state or detectable variant of a character which is inherited. For example, tall and dwarf are the traits/ variants of stem height which is a character.

Criteria for selecting the organism in studying inheritance of a few traits

• The organism should be pure (homozygous), so that it produces clones.
• It should have a short life cycle so that many generations can be studied in a year.
• It should be easily handled and maintained. For eample, Drosophila.
• It should have distinct contrasting traits or characters. For example, the seed colour in pea plants (green and yellow).
• It should produce more progenies. Gathering more information from more progenies gives accurate data.
• Self pollination should be possible in the case of plants.
• Organisms must show sexual dimorphism.