Mendel's Research

Introduction to Mendel's Research

Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, was an Austrian monk whose experiments on the transmission of hereditary characteristics have become the foundation of the current theory of heredity. Mendel's laws explain the traits of the offspring from knowledge of the characteristics of their parents.

1856 Mendel began in the garden of his monastery systematic crossing experiments with the previously carefully selected varieties of peas . He and seeds examined characteristics of pea plants, which were clearly distinguishable, for example, red-or white-flowering varieties, those with yellow or green seeds etc. He cruised by the pollen of one species on the scars brought the other species and unwanted self and foreign pollination by removing the stamens of the flowers and veiling excluded (Smith, Cheryl, Smith). With this technique have long known, he undertook the first major test series. From 355 artificial inseminations, he drew 12 980 hybrids and could win as evidence for the splitting of the rule-like features.

Between 1856 and 1863 he cultivated an estimated 28 000 pea plants. In 1862 he founded with other friendly naturalists from around the Naturalists Club Brno. From his experiments were two general "laws" show, which to this day as a Mendelian rules have remained unknown. In 1866 he published his experiments on plant hybrids, but these were ignored in the professional world almost, and in 1870 the essay was followed over a number of artificial insemination gained Hieracium hybrids. Mendel, however, that much more detailed and comprehensive worked than suggested, these two works - among other things, he had conducted experiments with peas in addition to several other plant genera - is from the correspondence with Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli apparent (Henig).

Despite this detailed description, or perhaps for that very reason, his work did not answer the scientific community of his time. In fact,

Mendel corresponded with one of the most eminent botanists of the day, Carl Nageli, although this did not seem very impressed by their work. Mendel suggested considering other plants such as Hieracium vellosina, which Nageli was very interested. Mendel took his advice, but experiments with Hieracium proved inconclusive, since it found no consistent standards in the segregation of their characters, and began to believe that their results were of limited application (Orel). His faith and enthusiasm declined, due to the pressure of other occupations in the 1870 abandoned his experiments on inheritance. It was not until long after Mendel's death in 1903, when it was discovered that in Hieracium is given a special type of parthenogenesis, which produces deviations from the expected phenotypic and genotypic ratios.

They had to spend thirty-five for that Mendel's forgotten monograph came to light. In 1900, came the rediscovery, almost simultaneously, the laws of Mendel by three botanists, Hugo de Vries of the Netherlands in Germany, Eric Von Tschermak in Austria and Karl Erich Correns, in England (Tudge). Amazed by the simple experimental approach and the quantitative analysis of their data, they repeated their experiments and verified the mathematical regularity of the phenomena of heredity, ...