genetic diagrams

• what genes someone inherits (genotype) controls what characteristics that person develops (phenotype)
• each human has two alleles of every gene in the body
• if an organisms has two alleles for a particular gene that are the same, it is homozygous. if its two alleles for a particular gene are different, it is heterozygous
• if two alleles are different, only one can determine what characteristic is present. the allele for the characteristic that's shown is called the dominant allele. the other one is the recessive allele
• for an organism to display a recessive characteristic, both its alleles must be the recessive one