Who discovered the basic laws of inheritance?
Quick answer
Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian friar in Brno (today in the Czech Republic), discovered the basic laws of inheritance through experiments with pea plants between 1856 and 1863. He showed that traits are passed down in separate units, now called genes, in predictable ratios. He’s known as the father of genetics.
Key facts
- Scientist
- Gregor Mendel (1822–1884)
- Experiments
- 1856–1863, at St. Thomas’s Abbey, Brno
- Plants studied
- Thousands of garden pea plants
- Published
- 1866
Why peas?
Garden peas were ideal: they grow quickly, have clear either-or traits, and can be carefully cross-pollinated by hand. Mendel tracked seven traits:
| Trait | Two forms |
|---|---|
| Seed shape | Round / wrinkled |
| Seed color | Yellow / green |
| Flower color | Purple / white |
| Pod shape | Inflated / constricted |
| Pod color | Green / yellow |
| Flower position | Along the stem / at the tip |
| Plant height | Tall / short |
What he found
When he crossed purple-flowered plants with white-flowered ones, all the offspring were purple. But when those offspring were crossed, white flowers reappeared in about 1 out of 4 plants, a 3:1 ratio.
| Mendel’s idea | Modern meaning |
|---|---|
| Traits come in pairs of factors | Each parent passes on one version of a gene |
| Some factors are dominant | They show up even when only one copy is present |
| Others are recessive | They show only when two copies are present |
| Factors separate when passed on | Law of segregation |
| Different traits are inherited independently | Law of independent assortment |
Ignored, then rediscovered
Mendel presented his work in 1865 and published it in 1866, but few scientists understood its importance. He became abbot of his monastery and did little more research. In 1900, three botanists, Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns and Erich von Tschermak, independently rediscovered his results, and genetics was born.
How it fits with evolution
Darwin’s theory of evolution needed a way for traits to pass from parents to offspring. Mendel’s genetics, combined with natural selection in the 20th century, gave biology its modern foundation; see what evolution is.
Today we know Mendel’s “factors” are made of DNA.
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