Question

Horns are recessive; hornless is dominant. How might this challenge our understanding

Answer 1

Answer:

Please find the explanation below

Explanation:

Traits are physically observed features of an organism. They are coded for and determined by genes, which comes in two forms called ALLELE. Each allele is responsible for a particular phenotype that makes up a trait. A dominant trait is the one which is expressed over another in a heterozygous state i.e. combined state of the two different alleles that encodes the two different traits respectively.

In this question, having horns is a recessive trait while being hornless is a dominant trait. The two traits are encoded by different alleles of the same gene. When the two different alleles combine in the organism's genotype, the dominant trait (hornless) will express itself over its contrasting trait (horn), hence, the animal will be phenotypically hornless. The allele that encodes hornlessness is said to be the dominant allele while hornlessness is the dominant trait.

Note that, in this dominance inheritance pattern, the recessive trait i.e. horned, will only phenotypically be expressed when the recessive allele is homozygous i.e. same in the organism's genotype.