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Mendel’s Laws

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Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior

Synonyms

Mendelian inheritance

Definition

The set of three laws, proposed by Gregor J. Mendel in the mid-1860s, to explain the biological inheritance or heredity is known as Mendel’s laws. These laws are the law of segregation, law of independent assortment, and law of dominance, and they form the core of classical genetics to date.

Introduction

Gregor Johann Mendel (1822–1884) was a friar-cum-science teacher in Brno (Austria-Hungary), and known as the father of genetics due to his groundbreaking genetics experiments on sweet pea plants. Though he performed and published his scientific work in the 1860s, significance of his work was not widely recognized until 1900. His scientific results describe the transmission of hereditary information from parent generation to progeny generation. These results helped him to frame three laws of biological inheritance, which led to the foundation of classical genetics. Mendel’s contribution is significant in genetics as he framed these laws during a...

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References

  • Hartl, D. L., & Ruvolo, M. (2011). Genetics: Analysis of genes and genomes. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Neural and Cognitive Sciences, School of Medical Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Akash Gautam

Authors
  1. Akash Gautam
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Correspondence to Akash Gautam .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University , Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University Department of Psychology, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Centre for Neural and Cognitive Sciences, School of Medical Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Akash Gautam

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Gautam, A. (2018). Mendel’s Laws. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_2054-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_2054-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47829-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47829-6

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