Question

Why was the garden pea a good choice as an experimental organism in Mendel's work?

Short answer

Answer: Mendel chose the garden pea as an experimental organism for a number of reasons, including their ease of cultivation, short life cycle, distinct and visible traits, ability to control mating, and large sample size. These characteristics allowed Mendel to efficiently study inheritance patterns in plants and make crucial discoveries about the principles of genetics.

Step-by-step solution

1. Ease of Cultivation

Garden peas are easy to grow and maintain, making them a suitable choice for experimentation. They can be grown in a relatively small space and quickly produce a large number of offspring. This allowed Mendel to perform multiple experiments and generate more data without requiring extensive resources.

2. Short Life Cycle

Garden peas have a short life cycle, allowing Mendel to observe many generations in a relatively short period of time. This enabled him to study the inheritance patterns across multiple generations more efficiently than if he had chosen a plant with a longer life cycle.

3. Distinct, Visible Traits

Garden peas possess distinct, visible traits that can be easily observed and recorded, such as seed shape, seed color, flower color, and plant height. These traits made it easier for Mendel to track the inheritance patterns and determine the dominant and recessive traits.

4. Controlled Mating

Garden peas are capable of self-fertilization, meaning that they can produce seeds without the need for pollen from another plant. However, they can also be cross-pollinated, which allowed Mendel to intentionally control and manipulate the mating between different plants. This enabled him to study the inheritance patterns more accurately, as he could purposefully choose which plants to cross and observe the resulting offspring.

5. Large Sample Size

As mentioned earlier, garden peas produce a large number of offspring, providing Mendel with a large sample size for his experiments. A large sample size is crucial for obtaining statistically significant results and making accurate conclusions about the inheritance patterns in the plants. In summary, garden peas were an ideal choice for Mendel's experiments due to their ease of cultivation, short life cycle, distinct and visible traits, ability to control mating, and large sample size. These characteristics allowed Mendel to efficiently study the inheritance patterns in plants, ultimately leading to his groundbreaking discoveries about the principles of genetics.