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Incomplete Dominance

Incomplete Dominance

Gregor Mendel's work (1822 - 1884) was primarily focused on pea plants. Through his initial experiments, he determined that every gene in a diploid cell has two variants called alleles inherited from each parent. He suggested that amongst these two alleles, one allele is dominant in character and the other recessive. The combination of alleles determines the phenotype of a gene in an organism.

Pedigree Analysis

Pedigree Analysis

Hardy-Weinberg Principle

Hardy-Weinberg Principle

Diploid organisms have two alleles of each gene, one from each parent, in their somatic cells. Therefore, each individual contributes two alleles to the gene pool of the population. The gene pool of a population is the sum of every allele of all genes within that population and has some degree of variation. Genetic variation is typically expressed as a relative frequency, which is the percentage of the total population that has a given allele, genotype or phenotype.

Sex-linked Disorders

Sex-linked Disorders

Like autosomes, sex chromosomes contain a variety of genes necessary for normal body function. When a mutation in one of these genes results in biological deficits, the disorder is considered sex-linked.

Genetic Lingo

Genetic Lingo

Law of Segregation

Law of Segregation

When crossing pea plants, Mendel noticed that one of the parental traits would sometimes disappear in the first generation of offspring, called the F1 generation, and could reappear in the next generation (F2). He concluded that one of the traits must be dominant over the other, thereby causing masking of one trait in the F1 generation. When he crossed the F1 plants, he found that 75% of the offspring in the F2 generation had the dominant phenotype, while 25% had the recessive phenotype.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 10, 2025

How to Create and Use Binocular Rivalry

How to Create and Use Binocular Rivalry

Published on: November 10, 2010

Why is cyclic dominance so rare?

Hye Jin Park^1,2, Yuriy Pichugin¹, Arne Traulsen¹

¹Department of Evolutionary Theory, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany.

|September 4, 2020

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Cyclic dominance, a mechanism for maintaining biodiversity, is rare in nature. This study suggests that novel mutations rarely lead to cyclic dominance when they are similar to existing types.

Keywords:

diversity ecology evolution evolutionary biology game theory none

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Area of Science:

Evolutionary Biology
Population Genetics

Background:

Natural populations exhibit diverse coexisting individuals, raising questions about the maintenance of this diversity.
Cyclic dominance, exemplified by the rock-paper-scissor game, is a theoretical framework for understanding biodiversity maintenance.
The empirical observation of cyclic dominance in nature is infrequent, prompting investigation into its rarity.

Purpose of the Study:

To theoretically investigate the reasons behind the rarity of cyclic dominance in natural populations.
To explore the impact of continuously produced novel mutations on the emergence of cyclic dominance.

Main Methods:

Development of a theoretical model simulating an evolving population.
Analysis of the conditions under which cyclic dominance forms, with a focus on novel mutation introduction.

Main Results:

The probability of cyclic dominance emerging is significantly lower when new types are similar to existing ones.
Cyclic dominance is more likely to evolve through the introduction of unrelated types into a population.
Conversely, cyclic dominance rarely evolves within communities composed of similar types.

Conclusions:

The similarity of novel mutations to existing types is a key factor limiting the evolution of cyclic dominance.
The assembly of unrelated types provides a more probable pathway for the evolution of cyclic dominance in natural populations.