Question

When a curly-haired individual (genotype CC) has children with a straight-haired individual (genotype cc), incomplete dominance occurs. What type of hair will their offspring have?

Answer 1

Answer:

When a curly-haired individual (genotype CC) has children with a straight-haired individual (genotype cc), their offspring will have wavy-hair or little curled hair.

Explanation:

Complete dominance happens when in a gene the dominant allele completely masks the recessive allele. This is the case of individuals that are heterozygous for a particular gene and express the dominant trait. Many genes show complete dominance.

Incomplete dominance occurs when the dominant allele does not completely mask the effects of the recessive allele, and/or when neither of the two alleles is completely dominant over the other one. In this case, the organism’s phenotype is different for both the dominant and recessive allele and express as a mixture of both of them, being an intermediate phenotype between both homozygous genes.

Children born to a straight-haired parent and a curly-haired parent will have wavy hair, as an expression of both curly and straight traits.

Incomplete dominance is typical for many other characteristics such as skin color, eye color, height, hand size, etcetera.