BRAINCAKEDrosophila
The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is one of the most important model organisms in genetics. Much of what we know about linkage, sex-linkage and chromosome mapping came from breeding experiments with it, starting with Thomas Hunt Morgan in the early 1900s.
It is ideal for genetic crosses because:
• it has a short life cycle (about 10 days at 25 °C), so many generations can be studied quickly
• each female lays hundreds of eggs, giving large samples and reducing sampling error
• it is small, cheap and easy to keep in bottles on simple food
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Key terms in this lesson
- model organism
- A species that is widely studied to understand biological processes because it is easy to breed, observe and experiment on.
More in Genetic Information
- Law of Independent Assortment
- Multiple Alleles
- Codominance
- Dihybrid Crosses
- Probability
- Chi-Squared Test
- Chi-Squared Test - Monohybrid Crosses
- Chi-Squared Test- Dihybrid Crosses
All 30 lessons in Genetic Information · All Edexcel A-level Biology topics