Question

Describe the characteristics of the garden pea that made it a good organism for Mendel's analysis of the basic principles of inheritance. Evaluate how easy or difficult it would be to make a similar study of inheritance in humans by considering the same attributes you described for the pea.

Answer 1

Answer and explanation:

The garden pea had many advantages to be used as a model in inheritance studies. These plants grow very fast, so you can rise several generations in little time. This fundamental if you want to do this kind of studies. The study object needs to have a brief generational time, so they can be selected and their descendants can be raised again. Another advantage was that garden peas can be raised easily. They don't need any special care. Besides, they were common in the market. Mendel could find them and bought them any time that he wants. Also, they presented visible characteristics that could vary from one plant to another. Some pea gardens had violet flowers, while others had white flowers. Some were tall, while others were small. These made possible to select plants with specifics features and to study if they could transmit these features to the next generations.

It could be really difficult to do the same experiment in humans. several years would have to pass to observe new generations, so during the lapse time of the researcher, only a few human’s generations could be studied.