Guinea Pig Offspring Generation 2 Ratios

What are the expected ratios of offspring in Generation 2?

long black fur, long white fur, short black fur?

Answer:

The expected ratios of guinea pig offspring in Generation 2 for two traits, assuming both parents are heterozygous for short black fur (dominant) and long white fur (recessive), would follow a 9:3:3:1 dihybrid cross distribution.

Explanation:

The question pertains to the expected ratios of offspring in the second generation of guinea pigs when considering two traits: fur length and fur color, where short fur and black fur are dominant. To determine these ratios, we use the principles of Mendelian genetics, specifically those concerning monohybrid crosses and dihybrid crosses.

Dominant and recessive alleles interact in predictable ways. In a monohybrid cross, a typical phenotypic ratio is 3:1 for dominant to recessive traits if one parent is homozygous dominant and the other is homozygous recessive. However, for a dihybrid cross involving two traits, we can use a methodology similar to a Punnett square to predict the outcome, examining the distribution of two alleles across both traits.

Using the information provided that short black fur is dominant to long white fur, we can infer from a dihybrid cross that the phenotypic ratio in the F2 generation is typically 9:3:3:1, assuming that both parents are heterozygous for both traits. This ratio represents the distribution of the dominant and recessive alleles across the two traits.