Question

in cattle, the allele that causes horns to grow is recessive. another recessive allele causes the cows to grow abnormally large and muscular. these muscular cows are often called belgian blue cows. if a cow that is heterozygous for both the horn and belgian blue trait genes passes on the allele for growing horns to an offspring, what are the odds that the parent cow also passes on the allele for becoming very muscular to that offspring? less than 50% 50% greater than 50% 100%

Explanation:

Step1: Determine the genetic principle

This problem is based on Mendel's law of independent assortment. When a cow is heterozygous for two traits (let's assume the alleles for horn - no horn are \(H/h\) and for muscular - non - muscular are \(M/m\)), the genotype is \(HhMm\).

Step2: Analyze the allele separation

According to the law of independent assortment, the separation of alleles for one trait (\(H/h\)) is independent of the separation of alleles for another trait (\(M/m\)). When the cow passes on the \(h\) allele (for horns), the possible alleles for the muscular trait (\(M\) or \(m\)) are still in a 1:1 ratio.

Answer:

50%