Explain the law of independent assortment with an example.

The law of independent assortment states that the inheritance of one pair of traits is independent of the inheritance of another pair of traits, provided the genes are located on different chromosomes.

For example, in pea plants, seed shape (round R and wrinkled r) and seed color (yellow Y and green y) are two different traits. When a plant with round yellow seeds (RRYY) is crossed with a plant having wrinkled green seeds (rryy), the F1 generation will have all round yellow seeds (RrYy).

When these F1 plants are self-crossed (RrYy × RrYy), the traits assort independently, producing four combinations: round yellow, round green, wrinkled yellow, and wrinkled green. The phenotypic ratio observed is 9:3:3:1.

This law shows that different traits are inherited independently, leading to genetic variation in offspring.