Question

What are dominant and recessive traits?

Answer 1

Genes and alleles:

1. Genes are the basic fundamental units of inheritance.
2. They carry the information needed for an organism to express a specific trait.
3. Each person is born with two copies of each gene, one from each parent.
4. Gene is a segment of DNA.
5. Genes are carried on chromosomes.
6. Alleles are genes that code for a pair of contrasting features.
7. Alleles can either be recessive or dominant.

Dominant traits:

1. It is expressed when both the alleles of a gene are dominant, or one of the alleles is dominant, and the other is recessive.
2. The dominant allele is denoted by a capital letter.
3. Example - Right-handedness in humans.

Recessive traits:

1. It is expressed only if both the alleles of a gene are recessive.
2. If one of the two alleles is dominant, it masks the expression of the recessive allele.
3. The recessive allele is denoted by a small letter.
4. Example - Left-handedness in humans.