Video Transcript
Which of the following is not a
reason that Mendel chose pea plants for his experiments? (A) Pea plants can self-pollinate
or be artificially pollinated by humans, so Mendel could investigate the effect of
self- and cross-pollination. (B) Pea plants grow quickly, so
Mendel could produce many of them in a short amount of time. (C) Pea plants have pairs of
contrasting traits; for example, their pods can be yellow or they can be green. Or (D) pea plants are very rare, so
Mendel knew no one else was doing these experiments.
Gregor Mendel was a 19th-century
monk who is now widely regarded as the father of modern genetics due to his study on
the inheritance of traits. Gregor Mendel specifically chose
pea plants to carry out his experiments with for a few different reasons. Firstly, pea plants were quite easy
to find and grow. They grow relatively quickly, so
Mendel could produce a large population of them in a short amount of time.
Pea plants can produce offspring in
a few different ways. They can be cross-pollinated, which
means that the pollen which contains the male sex cells from one plant is
transferred to the female reproductive parts of another plant. Alternatively, they can
self-pollinate. This happens when the pollen from
one plant is transferred to the female reproductive parts of the same plant. They can also be artificially
pollinated. This is when a human will transfer
the pollen between plants or between the male and female reproductive parts of the
same plant.
Importantly for Mendel’s
experiments, pea plants show distinct and contrasting traits for many of their
physical characteristics. For example, one plant may produce
smooth seeds and another plant may produce wrinkled seeds. One plant may have red flowers, but
another may have white flowers. These contrasting traits for
certain characteristics were incredibly useful for Mendel to show the inheritance of
traits with his experiments.
Let’s take a look back at the
answer choices to determine our correct answer. Remember, we are looking for the
answer which is not a correct reason that Mendel chose pea plants. We know that Mendel chose pea
plants because they could be self-, cross-, and artificially pollinated. So (A) is not the correct answer to
this question. Pea plants grow quickly and
importantly for Mendel show contrasting traits. So let’s go ahead and eliminate (B)
and (C) from our options. Pea plants are fairly common garden
plants, so they are not rare. Therefore, option (D) is not a
reason that Mendel chose pea plants. So the correct answer to our
question is pea plants are very rare, so Mendel knew no one else was doing these
experiments.
