Answer to Question #330647 in Genetics for Kayleigh

Question

A cross between a blue bird and a white bird produce silver offspring. What are the genotypes of the parents? What are the genotypes of the offspring?

Answer 1

Let the candidate gene responsible for the colour of the plumage of birds be A.

Judging by the fact that when crossing the above birds, all birds are the same in the first generation, this means that the parental birds are homozygous, and the offspring are heterozygous. Also, the offspring have an intermediate plumage colour between those of the parent birds, which means that the A gene has incomplete dominance.

Accordingly, the genotype of the blue parent bird is AA, and the genotype of the white parent bird is aa.

Silver birds in the first generation have the Aa genotype.