The law of states that traits are passed from parents to offspring independently of one another.

According to Mendel’s law of independent assortment, the alleles of a pair segregate into the same or different gamete, and their separation is not influenced by each other.

Further Explanation:

The law of independent assortment explains that when the genes are sorted into different gametes, the receipt of an allele from gene 1 by the gamete is independent of which allele it receives from gene 2. Therefore, the sorting of alleles into gametes is an independent and random process.

For example, in a dihybrid cross, two true-breeding pea plants are crossed. One plant has seeds with yellow color and round shaped (YYRR) while the seeds of the other plants are green in color and wrinkled in shape (yyrr). As the plants are homozygous, the gametes thus formed would be YR for round, yellow seeds and yr for wrinkled, green seeds. Therefore, after the fusion of these gametes, the progeny would be all RrYy (round, yellow seeds).

Such cross defines that the allele for yellow color is dominant over the allele specifying green color while the wrinkled shape is recessive as compared to the round shape (dominant). As a result, all the seeds in the F1 generation were all yellow and round.

When the F1 generation was self-crossed, the following progenies were observed in the F2 generation:

Parent: RrYy X RrYy

Gametes: RY, Ry, rY, ry

Refer Table 1 attached below:

Four types of seeds are formed:

Round, yellow: RRYY (1), RRYy (2), RrYY (2), RrYy (4)

Round, green: RRyy (1), Rryy (2)

Wrinkled, yellow: rrYY (1), rrYy (2)

Wrinkled, green: rryy (1)

The different combination shape and color of seeds in the F2 generation indicated that the allele segregates independent of each other and combine randomly.

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Answer Details:

Grade: High School

Chapter: Laws of Inheritance

Subject: Biology

Keywords:  Law of inheritance, law of independent assortment, Mendel’s Law, dihybrid cross, true-breeding, gametes, allele, genes, segregation, random fusion, seed color, seed shape, dominant, recessive.