Wingless Experiment

Suppose the feather color of a bird is controlled by two alleles, D and d. The D allele results in dark feathers, while the d allele results in lighter feathers.

Introduction: The intention of this lab was to gain a better understanding of Mendelian genetics and inheritance patterns of the drosophila fruit fly. This was tasked through inspecting phenotypes present in the dihybrid crosses performed on the flies. An experimental virtual fly lab assignment was also used to analyze the inheritance patterns. Specifically, the purpose of our drosophila crosses is to establish which phenotypes are dominant/recessive, if the traits are inherited through autosome or sex chromosomes and whether independent assortment or linkage is responsible for the expressed traits.

melanogaster, leaving B and D to be our mutants. Before crossing our populations, we made not of each one’s phenotype in order to see how crossing them would affect their phenotypes: Population B flies had no wings and red eyes, population D had full wings and black eyes and population G had full wings and red eyes. We expected the resulting phenotypes to be some sort of combination, revealing which traits were dominant. However, what we did not expect was the abnormal mutant that arose in a couple of our populations.

Butterflies have many genes which are expressed into ways that are either dominant, or recessive. For example to have blue eyes the dominant allele would be (B) and the recessive allele would be (b).

The motivation of this lab report is to use Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance to analyze and predict the genotypes and phenotypes of an offspring generation (F2) after knowing the genotypes and phenotypes of the parent generation (F1). The hypothesis for this experiment is that the mode of inheritance for the shaven bristle allele in flies is autosomal recessive in both male and female flies.

It would be expected that the mutant F1 flies would be heterozygous for the allele responsible for the grounded trait. If two F1 flies were mated, the percentage of flies that would be expected to be wildtype in the F2 generation would be 25% mutants given that the mutant allele (ap) is predicted to be recessive and, leaving 75% to be wildtype (ap+).

In this experiment we tested to see what the offspring of an unknown cross of an F1 generation would produce. After observing the F2 generation and recording the data we found some of the Drosophila showed mutations, two in particular. The mutations were the apterus wings, and sepia eyes. After collecting our data through observation, a Chi-test was conducted resulting in a Chi-value of 5.1 and a p-value of .2. Since the p-value was greater than 0.05, there was no significant change in the data. This proved that the Drosophila flies still followed the Mendelian genetics of a 9:3:3:1 ratio.

Genes can either be sex-linked or autosomal. If a gene appears mostly in one sex chances are the gene is sex-linked and if it appears frequently in both sexes it is most likely autosomal. Using Drosophila melanogaster, also known as the fruit fly, we will determine whether the gene is sex-linked or autosomal. Drosophila melanogasters have a relatively short life span and are an excellent organism for genetic studies because it has simple food requirements, occupies little space, is hardy, completes its life cycle in about 12 days at room temperature, produces large numbers of offspring, can be immobilized readily for examination and

When examining the D. Melanogaster mutants in the lab, our group immediately noticed an apparent difference from the wild-type flies. None of the mutants were able to fly. This led us to believe that we were dealing with a wing mutation. Upon further examination, we concluded that it was the overall wing shape that prevented the mutants from flying. The wing shapes among the mutants varied in both size and shape. Some were long, while others were short. The mutant wings could be distinguished into two general classes. One division of the mutant wing was short and stubby, almost a fourth the size of the wild-type wing. The rest of the mutants ranged in wing size and length, however many mutant wings were the same length as the wild-type wings. Although the

Genetics shows us that we inherit traits in many different ways. A perfect example to show us the different ways we inherit traits is fruit flies. Fruit flies are commonly used by scientists to conduct genetic experiments due to their reaction to the experiment being very quick. Scientists mainly look at how the flies inherit basic traits such as brown body color, or red eyes(basic trait flies are known as wild-type flies) from their parents, but sometimes they can come across some abnormal traits. Some of these abnormal traits include having a yellow body color or having curly shaped wings and have made scientists wonder how the flies have inherited these specific traits. So how do the flies inherit

The Unknown Drosophila Cross Abstract: Genetics is the study of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms.. Heredity is the passing of traits to offspring from its parents (Bechtel). This is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to the characteristics of its parent cell or organism. These characteristics are in a physical sense are known as phenotypes and genotypes in the genetic sense. In the lab, we studied Mendelian Genetics through a common insect of a fruit fly, formally known as Drosophila Melangaster.

For our first generation (F1) of flies we chose to cross apterous (+) females and white-eye (w) males. We predicted that the mutation would be sex linked recessive. So if the female was the sex with the mutation then all females would be wild type heterozygous. Heterozygous is a term used when the two genes for a trait are opposite. The males would all be white eye since they only have one X chromosome. If the males were the sex that had the mutation then all the flies would be wild type but the females would be heterozygous.

This experiment looks at the relationship between genes, generations of a population and if genes are carried from one generation to another. By studying Drosophila melanogaster, starting with a parent group we crossed a variety of flies and observe the characteristics of the F1 generation. We then concluded that sex-linked genes and autosomal genes could indeed be traced through from the parent generation to the F1 generation.

The mode of inheritance for the four traits of eye shape, eye color, bristle morphology, and body color were studied in Drosophila melanogaster, or commonly known as the fruit fly. Each gene was analyzed through true breeding crosses and then reciprocal crosses of the wild type and mutant flies. The gene for body color encodes either a honey yellow or ebony color in the fly. It was determined that the honey, which is the wild type, is the dominant allele and the ebony color is the recessive allele. Eye color, eye shape, and bristle morphology were all determined to be sex linked on the X chromosome as they are more prevalent in the males. If these genes were found on the Y chromosome, there would be no females found with mutations in the eye

Hypothesis: The hypothesis is that Normal wings (NN) are the dominant trait and Butterfly wings (bb) are the recessive trait. The original parents are purebred (homozygous dominant (NN) and homozygous recessive (bb). The F1 generation is predicted to displays 100% Normal wings population of heterozygous (Nb). The F-2 generation is predicted to display a 3:1 Mendelian ratio of Normal wings to Butterfly wings.