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| Genetics | the study of biological inheritance patterns and variation in organisms |
| Heredity | the passing on of traits from parents to children |
| Traits | distinguishing characteristics that are inherited (eye color, leaf shape, and tail length) |
| Genes | a piece of a chromosome (DNA) that provides instructions to produce a protein |
| purebred | an organism that always produces offspring with the same trait as itself (homozygous) |
| cross | the mating of two organisms |
| law of segregation | organisms inherit two copies of each gene which are separated during gamete formation |
| allele | alternate forms of a gene |
| homozygous | an individual with two of the same allele for a gene |
| heterozygous | an individual with two different alleles for a gene |
| genome | all of an organism's genetic material |
| genotype | the genetic makeup of a specific gene |
| phenotype | physical characteristics, or traits, of an individual organism |
| dominant | an allele that is expressed even if only 1 copy is present and masks the expression of a recessive allele |
| recessive | an allele that is only expressed when two copies are present, hidden with 1 copy |
| Punnett square | a diagram that predicts the outcome of a particular genetic cross |
| monohybrid crosses | crosses that examine the inheritance of only one specific trait |
| F1 | first filial generation (offspring of parental generation) |
| F2 | second filial generation (offspring of F1) |
| testcross | a cross between an organism with an unknown genotype (homo or heterozygous dominant) with a known genotype (homozygous recessive) to determine the genotype of the unknown |
| dihybrid crosses | crosses that examine the inheritance of two traits |
| law of independent assortment | allele pairs separate independently of each other during gamete formation so different traits appear to be inherited separately |
