Genetics is the study of how heritable traits are transmitted from parents to offspring.

Humans have long observed that traits tend to be similar in families. It wasn’t until the mid-
nineteenth century that larger implications of genetic inheritance began to be studied
scientifically.

Natural selection

This is one of the last photographs taken of Charles Darwin, who developed the theory of
evolution whereby changes in species are driven, over time, by natural and sexual selection.
Credit: Richard Milner Archive
In 1858, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace jointly announced their theory of natural
selection. According to Darwin’s observations, in nearly all populations individuals tend to
produce far more offspring than are needed to replace the parents. If every individual born
were to live and reproduce still more offspring, the population would collapse.
Overpopulation leads to competition for resources.
Inheritance of traits
In 1866, Gregor Mendel published the results of years of experimentation in breeding pea
plants. He showed that both parents must pass discrete physical factors which transmit
information about their traits to their offspring at conception. An individual inherits one such
unit for a trait from each parent. Mendel's principle of dominance explained that most traits
are not a blend of the father’s traits and those of the mother as was commonly thought.
Instead, when an offspring inherits a factor for opposing forms of the same trait,
the dominant form of that trait will be apparent in that individual. The factor for
the recessive trait, while not apparent, is still part of the individual’s genetic makeup and may
be passed to offspring.
Mendel’s experiments demonstrated that when sex cells are formed, the factors for each trait
that an individual inherits from its parents are separated into different sex cells. When the
sex cells unite at conception the resulting offspring will have at least two factors (alleles) for
each trait. One inherited factor from the mother and one from the father. Mendel used the
laws of probability to demonstrate that when the sex cells are formed, it is a matter of
chance as to which factor for a given trait is incorporated into a particular sperm or egg.
We now know that simple dominance does not explain all traits. In cases of co-
dominance, both forms of the trait are equally expressed. Incomplete dominance results in a
blending of traits. In cases of multiple alleles, there are more than just two possible ways a
given gene can be expressed. We also now know that most expressed traits, such as the
many variations in human skin color, are influenced by many genes all acting on the same
apparent trait. In addition, each gene that acts on the trait may have multiple alleles.
Environmental factors can also interact with genetic information to supply even more
variation. Thus sexual reproduction is the biggest contributor to genetic variation among
individuals of a species.
Twentieth-century scientists came to understand that combining the ideas of genetics and
natural selection could lead to enormous strides in understanding the variety of organisms
that inhabit our earth.

Mutation

Historically, scientists have defined living creatures by the presence of DNA, but how living
creatures process information may be a better hallmark of life, a new study argues
Credit: NASA
Scientists realized that the molecular makeup of genes must include a way for genetic
information to be copied efficiently. Each cell of a living organism requires instructions on
how and when to build the proteins that are the basic building blocks of body structures and
the “workhorses” responsible for every chemical reaction necessary for life. In 1958, when
James Watson and Francis Crick described the structure of the DNA molecule, this chemical
structure explained how cells use the information from the DNA stored in the cell’s nucleus
to build proteins. Each time cells divide to form new cells, this vast chemical library must be
copied so that the daughter cells have the information required to function. Inevitably, each
time the DNA is copied, there are minute changes. Most such changes are caught and
repaired immediately. However, if the alteration is not repaired the change may result in an
altered protein. Altered proteins may not function normally. Genetic disorders are conditions
that result when malfunctioning proteins adversely affect the organism. [Gallery: Images of
DNA Structures]

In very rare cases the altered protein may function better than the original or result in a trait
that confers a survival advantage. Such beneficial mutations are one source of genetic
variation.