Question: 5 How did Mendel come to the conclusion that the ratio between dominant and recessive traits was 3:1 Use at least two details from the passage to support your answer.

Mendel came to the conclusion that the ratio between dominant and recessive traits was 3:1 based on his experiments with pea plants. He observed that when he crossed purebred plants with different traits, the offspring (F1 generation) always displayed the dominant trait. However, when he allowed the F1 generation to self-pollinate, the recessive trait reappeared in the F2 generation in a 3:1 ratio. This observation led Mendel to propose that traits are inherited as discrete units, now known as genes, and that each individual has two copies of each gene, one from each parent. The dominant gene masks the effect of the recessive gene in the F1 generation, but the recessive gene can still be passed on to the F2 generation.