Heredity

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Heredity is an important concept of genetics. It is the transfer of characteristics from parents to their offspring. This is accomplished through genes. Genes are the carriers of this biological information and play a large role in the determination of physical characteristics as well as in some behavioral traits.

History

In history there was a basic understanding that offspring resemble their parent as well as the distinction in varieties of organisms that were apparent in the physical differences between organisms of the same species. The mystery however lied in the mechanism in which these traits were inherited. Many mechanisms were proposed such as blending inheritance and the inheritance of acquired traits but these were not properly evaluated and tested. Regardless of this, the concepts in these mechanisms were able to be applied to the breeding of animals and crops by artificial selection. The works of Charles Darwin also contributed to the mystery of heredity as it was a problem in his theory of evolution. He outlined the way it appeared to work rather than mechanisms. He also believed in a mix of blending inheritance and acquired trait inheritance. The inheritance of acquired traits model was eventually disproved. It was not until Mendel that the idea of particulate inheritance of genes arose. A combination of his work and others was accomplished by Fisher and resulted in the modern synthesis of evolution.

Applications

The study of heredity is connected associated with many fields in biology especially genetics. It is valuable as it can establish relationship links based on the analysis of the genome structure. It is possible to determine common ancestral linkages and trace the process of evolution. It connects closely with molecular biology, evolutionary studies and biochemistry.