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Principles Of Inheritance And Variation

Question
CBSEENBI12002028

State and explain the ‘law of independent assortment’ in a typical Mendelian dihybrid cross.

Solution

Law of Independent Assortment (Third law) is based on inheritance of two genes, i.e. dihybrid cross which states that when two pairs of contrasting traits are combined in a hybrid, segregation of one pair of characters is independent of the other pair of characters. These factors randomly rearrange in the offspring producing both parental and new combination of characters means inheritance of one character does not affect the inheritance of another character and both characters
assort independently. The Punnett square can be used to understand the independent segregation of the two pairs of genes during meiosis. Linkage is the exception of law of independent assortment.