Quote:
Originally Posted by NarnianGarden
Most of what I read did go way over my head. Perhaps the article did explain but I did not get it: how would. let's say, two dominant traits behave - is there a way to predict that, or is it a random reaction?
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It is easier to work out with regard to specific examples and then it depends on exactly what the genes are doing.
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The wild-type allele 'R' is dominant and responsible for the red lycopene of tomatoes (the recessive 'r' leads to yellow/white tomatoes with no lycopene). Some orange tomatoes have a dominant allele 'B'/'Beta' leading to increased beta-carotene production, at the expense of lycopene.
It turns out that beta-carotene is synthesized from lycopene. For the dominant 'B' allele to be apparent with its orange color, there already has to be lycopene synthesis due to the dominant 'R' allele.
It isn't ever random, but without knowing how the traits interact it can be confounding.