Suppose Melissa started growing four o'clock plants, Mirabilis jalapa, in her garden. She noticed that the plants have white, green, or patchy white and green (variegated) leaves. Melissa would like to have only four o'clock plants with variegated leaves, so she crosses a few of her plants to see which crosses produce offspring with variegated leaves. She knows that leaf color is determined by the color of the chloroplasts. For each cross, determine the offspring phenotypes that could be observed. Each cross may produce plants with one or more different phenotypes. Parent crosses Offspring phenotypes green female × green male white female × variegated male variegated female × green male variegated female × white male
Genetic Variation
Genetic variation refers to the variation in the genome sequences between individual organisms of a species. Individual differences or population differences can both be referred to as genetic variations. It is primarily caused by mutation, but other factors such as genetic drift and sexual reproduction also play a major role.
Quantitative Genetics
Quantitative genetics is the part of genetics that deals with the continuous trait, where the expression of various genes influences the phenotypes. Thus genes are expressed together to produce a trait with continuous variability. This is unlike the classical traits or qualitative traits, where each trait is controlled by the expression of a single or very few genes to produce a discontinuous variation.
Suppose Melissa started growing four o'clock plants, Mirabilis jalapa, in her garden. She noticed that the plants have white, green, or patchy white and green (variegated) leaves. Melissa would like to have only four o'clock plants with variegated leaves, so she crosses a few of her plants to see which crosses produce offspring with variegated leaves. She knows that leaf color is determined by the color of the chloroplasts.
For each cross, determine the offspring
| Parent crosses | Offspring phenotypes |
| green female × green male | |
| white female × variegated male | |
| variegated female × green male | |
| variegated female × white male |
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