Genes and Alleles

... means that the offspring will be slightly different from the parents, even though there are many similarities.

In this lesson we will review some of the ideas we have learned about genes and understand how modification occurs.

First, a few review questions:

see 5 minute video from Stated Clearly here

https://youtu.be/5MQdXjRPHmQ

We have two copies of each chromosome, one copy from dad, and one copy from mum.

Some of the genes will be the same, but some will be slightly different.

Can you see the two differences above?

In the example above, there are two alleles of the LONG* gene and two of the 3244* gene. There may be others in the population, but an individual can have two at the most, because they only have two parents!

watch (3 mins)

https://youtu.be/FsaYSGWuRmo

There may be different alleles (versions) of genes that control size, colour, number, effectiveness etc of something.

These features are called genetic ‘TRAITS’.