Question

In the first analysis, all of the f1 flies from the students’ crosses have the identical phenotype with respect to body color and wing shape, but the f2 flies have four different phenotypes. Describe how fertilization contributes to this genetic variability.

Answer 1

Fertilization contributes to the increase in genetic variability in a process that allows the fusion of gametes generated by meiosis. It is a se-xual mode of reproduction.

Meiosis and fertilization

Meiosis is a type of cell division where a parent cell divides twice to produce four daughter cells (gametes) having half of the genetic material.

Moreover, fertilization refers to the fusion of gametes in order to generate a zygote that will develop into an organism.

These processes (meiosis and fertilization) increase genetic variation by recombination (meiosis), the independent assortment of chromosomes (meiosis) and random mating (fertilization).

In consequence, meiosis and fertilization generate new allelic combinations and thus can evidence the presence of recessive alleles (as in the F2 above).

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