Gregor Mendel

Source

• Born: 22 July 1822
• Birthplace: Hyncice, Moravia (now Czech Republic)
• Died: 6 January 1884
• Best Known As: The founding father of modern genetics

A monk with a scientific streak, Mendel made botanical discoveries which became the basis of modern genetics. His careful cross-breeding of thousands of pea plants led Mendel to key insights, now called Mendel's Laws of Heredity, about how inherited traits are passed on from generation to generation. As a young man Mendel entered the St. Thomas Monastery in Brünn, Austria (now Brno, the Czech Republic). He devoted much of his time to teaching and scientific inquiry. Between 1856 and 1863 he catalogued successive generations of pea plants with statistical precision, looking for clues to how traits like color and shape were reproduced. Among his findings were the law of segregation (which includes the notion of dominant and recessive genes) and the law of independent assortment (which says that an organism's individual traits are passed on independently of one another). Mendel published Experiments in Plant Hybridization in 1865, but his theories were not widely embraced until the 1900s.

Mendel was made abbot of the St. Thomas Monastery in 1868... His birthplace of Hyncice is also known by its former German name, Heinzendorf.

For more information on Gregor Johann Mendel, visit Britannica.com.

[b. Heinzendorf, Silesia (Poland), July 22, 1822, d. Brünn, Bohemia (Brno, Czech Republic), January 6, 1884]

A monk who experimented with garden peas and other plants in his spare time, Mendel discovered the fundamental principles of genetics. Between 1856 and 1863 he grew at least 28,000 pea plants and analyzed characteristics such as height, flower color, and pod shape. He carefully cross-pollinated plants, then noted what sort of plants developed from the seeds. In an 1865 paper he characterized what came to be called Mendel's laws. The law of unit characters says that characteristics of an individual are controlled by hereditary factors (now called genes) and that these factors occur in pairs. The law of dominance says that some inherited factors are dominant and can mask other, recessive factors. The law of segregation says that the factors of a pair are separated during reproduction, so only one goes to a particular offspring. Mendel's principle of incomplete dominance is that for some characteristics neither gene is dominant. The importance of Mendel's work was not recognized until 1900, when three botanists working independently reached similar conclusions and, in the process, discovered his paper.

Natural Scientist 1822-1884

Gregor Mendel laid the foundation for the modern understanding of inheritance with his experiments on transmission of traits in garden peas. The ideas he developed are still in use today, and his essential insights into the physical nature of inheritance led directly to the understanding of the gene as a physical entity within the cell.

Education and Training

Mendel was born into a farming family in Heinzendorf, Austria (now Hyncice, Czech Republic). He attended university in Olmutz, but financial difficulties soon persuaded him to enter the Augustinian monastery in Brno, where he received both theological and agricultural training. Mendel remained affiliated with the monastery for the rest of his life. He served briefly as a parish chaplain in the region, and for many years served as a popular and successful teacher at the technical school in Brno. His training in agricultural experimentation, obtained at the University of Vienna, beginning in 1851, prepared him for the experiments that he began in 1856 on peas.

Experiments on Peas

Mendel's experiments were designed to investigate the most widely accepted model of inheritance, blending, which held that the traits of an offspring would be a blend of the parental traits. For example, the theory of blending predicts that a tall and short parent would give rise to a medium-height offspring. Mendel's results showed that for many simple traits, at least, this model was wrong. Instead, the offspring displayed traits in exactly the same form as they appeared in one or the other of the parents.

Mendel chose to study a small group of traits that occur in either of two forms, such as round versus wrinkled pea shape. He began by developing "pure-breeding" lines of each form. In a pure-breeding line, crossing two members gives only offspring that are identical to the parents for that trait. Mendel then crossed pure-breeding parents who had different forms of a trait. For example, he crossed a pea plant that produced only round peas with one that produced only wrinkled peas. All the offspring from this cross-developed only round peas; no wrinkled peas were found. When these off-spring were crossed among themselves, however, both round and wrinkled were observed, in a numerical ratio of three round-pea plants for every one wrinkled-pea plant.

Mendel explained these results by proposing that each visible trait is governed by the presence of two "factors," which may be the same or different in any individual. One of these factors is "dominant," while the other is "recessive." In the above example, the round-producing factor is dominant, and the wrinkled-producing factor is recessive. If two recessive factors are present, the organism will display the recessive trait. If the organism has two dominant factors, or one dominant and one recessive, the dominant trait will be displayed.

Laws of Inheritance

To explain the numerical relationships he obtained, Mendel developed the Law of Segregation. He proposed that during the process of egg and sperm formation, the two factors separate, or segregate, so that each egg or sperm contain only one factor. For a parent containing one of each type of factor, this means that half the sperm (or eggs) will contain the dominant factor, and half the recessive factor. During fertilization, these randomly pair up, so that some offspring will have two dominants, some two recessives, and some one of each. Simple algebra shows that the ratio of offspring in such a cross will be 3:1, just as Mendel found.

To show how this works, let 0.5D be the proportion of dominant factors and 0.5r be the proportion of recessive factors. Multiplying (0.5D + 0.5r) times itself gives the offspring ratios, 0.25D² + 0.5Dr + 0.25r². In this expression, 0.25D² indicates that one-quarter of the offspring will have both dominant factors, 0.5Dr means half will have one of each type, and 0.25r²means one-quarter will have both recessive factors. Since both the D² and Dr organisms will show the dominant trait, the ratio of dominant to recessive traits in the offspring will be 0.75:0.25, or 3:1.

Mendel went on to study crosses between peas with multiple sets of traits, such as round seeds plus tall plants crossed with wrinkled seeds plus short plants. He found that the factors for each trait acted independently, so that the offspring of these crosses showed all possible combinations of traits. From the results of these experiments, he formulated his second principle, known as the Law of Independent Assortment, which states that the members of factor pairs assort (segregate) independently of each other during sperm and egg formation, and combine again randomly.

Mendel's Scientific Legacy

While neither Mendel nor anyone else in his day knew anything about chromosomes or genes, the laws of inheritance he discovered predicted exactly how genes behave on chromosomes during the reproductive process. Indeed, the factors he discovered are genes, which come in pairs and segregate on separate chromosomes during sperm and egg production, just as he suggested. Gene pairs located on different sets of chromosomes will assort independently during the process. While most genes do not exhibit simple dominance-recessiveness relations, and most traits are governed by more than one gene, it is to Mendel's credit that he began by trying to understand simple systems in order to develop generalizable laws.

Mendel published the results of his experiments, "Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden" ("Attempts at Plant Hybridization") in 1866. He did little scientific work after he became abbot of the monastery two years later. His work was ignored by the larger scientific community, in part because it was not published in a widely read journal, and in part because it tackled a problem, the physical basis of heredity, that few other scientists were thinking deeply about at that time.

That changed shortly afterward, when microscopic studies of cells revealed that chromosomes divided when cells divided, provoking speculation that they might be involved in inheritance. Mendel's studies were redis-covered in 1900, sixteen years after his death, by three biologists studying similar phenomena. The importance of his theory of inheritance was immediately recognized and widely accepted, and became the starting point for further investigations of the nature of inheritance that were carried out by Thomas Hunt Morgan, Alfred Sturtevant, and other twentieth-century geneticists. Mendelism, as the theory was called, was merged with Darwinism in the 1930s to form the "New Synthesis," which explained evolutionary theory in modern genetic terms.

Bibliography

Henig, Robin Marantz. The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, the Father of Genetics. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

—Richard Robinson

The Moravian natural scientist and Augustinian abbot Johann Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) laid the foundations of modern genetics with his paper dealing with the hybridization of peas.

Gregor Mendel was born on July 22, 1822, at Hynčice, Czechoslovakia (then Heinzendorf, Austrian Silesia). His ancestors were farmers, and his father still had to work three days a week as a serf. Mendel displayed a great love for nature all his life.

Years of Preparation and Education

In 1831 Mendel was sent to the Piarist school in Lipník (Leipnik) and at the age of 12 to the grammar school in Opava (Troppau). In 1840 he enrolled at the Institute of Philosophy in Olomouc (Olmütz).

Mendel was admitted to the Augustinian order in Brno (Brünn) in 1843. The Augustinians taught philosophy, foreign languages, mathematics, and natural sciences at secondary schools and universities. Abbot Napp, the head of the monastery, devoted all his energy to the economic development of the monastery and to the scientific education of the members of the order. Surrounded by an atmosphere of dynamic activity, Mendel found optimum conditions for his studies and later for his research work. Along with his theological studies Mendel took courses in agriculture, pomiculture, and vine growing at the Institute of Philosophy in Brno. In 1847 he was ordained a priest and served for a short time as vicar at the Old Brno Monastery.

In 1849 Mendel became a teacher of mathematics and Greek at the grammar school in Znojmo (Znaim). After a year the headmaster recommended him for the university examination. Together with his application for admission to the examination Mendel enclosed his autobiography, which is the only authentic preserved document. Mendel failed the examination, probably because he lacked a complete university education. Only his written test on meteorology satisfied his examiner, and, on the latter's recommendation, Abbot Napp sent Mendel to study natural sciences at the University of Vienna (1851-1853). He heard F. Unger lecture on plant anatomy and physiology, the use of the microscope, and the practical organization of experiments. Unger was known for his views on evolution and had investigated the problem of the origin of plant variability by means of transplanting experiments. Mendel later performed these experiments also. It is now assumed that Unger's views deeply influenced Mendel in the formation of his ideas before he performed his experiments with edible peas (Pisum).

On his return to Brno in 1854 Mendel was appointed a teacher of physics and natural history in the Technical School. In 1856 he prepared himself for the university examination again, but he became seriously ill and did not take it. By this time, however, Mendel was fully occupied with his hybridizing experiments with Pisum. He remained a teacher till 1868, when he was elected abbot of the monastery.

Hybridizing Experiments

Mendel started his extensive program of hybridizing experiments in 1854. He focused his energy on the problem of the origin of plant variability. For two years he tested the purity of selected varieties of Pisum and then began experimenting with artificial fertilization. A new reconstruction of Mendel's experimental data illustrates that he must have tested about 28,000 Pisum plants during the years 1856-1863.

Mendel summarized the experimental results in a paper, "Experiments on Plant Hybrids," which he read at two meetings of the Natural Science Society in Brno in 1865; the paper was published in the proceedings of the society's journal. Though prominent natural scientists were present at the meeting, no one understood Mendel's ideas or the significance of his work. The proceedings were distributed to 134 scientific institutions in Europe and the United States, but the published paper failed to arouse interest.

Mendel's original idea, that heredity is particulate, was contrary to the theory of "blending heredity" that was generally accepted at that time. In the plants that Mendel tested (and in biparental-reproducing organisms generally), the hereditary particles (called elements by Mendel) from each parent are members of pairs. In forming the reproductive cells, the pair members segregate in different pollen or sperm nuclei and in different eggs or ovules to transmit the hereditary determinants. From one parent comes one particle determining, for example, the round shape of the seed (A), and from the other parent that representing the wrinkled shape (a). Mendel called the trait passing entirely unchanged into hybrid (derived from unlike parents) association "dominant," and the trait becoming latent in hybrids "recessive." The particles meet (recombine) in the offspring (Aa) but do not influence each other.

Suppose the pair members of these hybrid offspring now segregate in forming reproductive cells, producing two types of sperm or egg, namely Aor a, and that these particles meet at random in fertilization. The resulting combination series of relevant particles is: ¼ AA, ¼ Aa, ¼ aA, ¼ aa, or AA ¼2 Aa ¼ aa. That is, there are four genetic types of offspring from the hybrids, each type represented by 25 percent of the total. In this way, in the hybrid progeny the parental forms appear again; after 1900 this segregation of the hereditary units (in 1909 termed genes) was called Mendel's law of segregation.

Mendel found that hereditary particles belonging to different trait pairs, for example, A, a for the seed shape and B, b for the seed coloration, formed the combination series in recombining without influencing each other. The combination series could be predicted by combining the simple series AA 2Aaaa; BB 2Bbbb, resulting in the combination series AABBAAbbaaBBaabb 2AABb 2aaBb 2AaBB 2Aabb 4AaBb. In his paper Mendel actually illustrated such a recombination in crossing peas differing in two and three trait pairs. Expected particle recombinations were realized in actual counts of the offspring. The recombination of the hereditary particles was called Mendel's law of independent assortment.

Mendel gave the impulse for his experiments in the first sentence of his paper: "Artificial fertilization undertaken on ornamental plants to obtain new color variants initiated the experiments to be discussed." His task was to find "the generally applicable law of the formation and development of hybrids as a way of finally reaching the solution to a question whose significance for the evolutionary history of organic forms must not be underestimated." In his paper he expressed the opinion that "the distinguishing traits of two plants can, after all, becaused only by differences in the composition among grouping of the elements existing in dynamic interaction in the primordial cells." He assumed the general validity of his theory because, according to him, "unity in the plan of development of organic life is beyond doubt."

Being interested in the development of hybrid forms, Mendel also explained that the population descending from hybrids tends to revert to the pure parental forms, resulting in diminishing the hybrid's form. Thus, as a consequence of Mendelian segregation, Mendel also laid the basis for the interpretation of the effect of inbreeding.

Mendel continued his hybridizing experiments, crossing various forms of 22 other genera of plants, to prove the general validity of his theory in the plant kingdom. He also cultivated wild plants in the garden with the aim of investigating Lamarck's views concerning the influence of environment upon plant variability; he could not agree with Lamarck. He was convinced, like Darwin, that it was impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line between species and varieties, and in the conclusion of his Pisum paper he expressed the conviction that the variability of cultivated plants could be explained by his theory.

After 1871 Mendel also tried to carry out hybridizing experiments with bees. He bred about 50 bee races which he tried crossing to obtain new cultural breeds. His crossing experiments could not be successful, however, because of the complex problem of the controlled mating of queens. For this reason Mendel focused his activity on research of the technological aspects of apiculture, such as the hibernation of bees.

As a member of the Natural Science Section of the Agricultural Society in Brno and as a respected meteorologist, Mendel summarized the results of meteorological observations in 1856 and published them in six reports (1862-1869). He also published three papers on extraordinary storms (1870-1872). He was a member of the Central Board of the Agricultural Society from 1870, and he supported the first weather forecasts for farmers in 1878. In 1861 he helped found the Natural Science Society of Brno.

Taxation and the Monastery

After Mendel was elected abbot of the monastery in 1868, he had little time for his experimental activities, although they never came to a total stop. In 1874 the government proclaimed a new law relating to the contribution of the cloisters to the religious fund. Mendel refused to pay the high assessed taxes and thus, from the end of 1875, got himself into trouble with the provincial government and with the Ministry of Education in Vienna. The result of this conflict was the lasting sequestration of the landed monasterial property. In an attempt to win Mendel over and stop his opposition to the taxation law, the government appointed him to the Board of Directors of the Moravian Mortgage Bank. In 1876 he became the vice-governor of the bank and in 1881 the governor. Nevertheless, Mendel never agreed to the taxation law.

The long struggle over taxation had a serious effect on Mendel's health. He died on Jan. 6, 1884, without any public recognition of his outstanding scientific achievements.

Contributions to Genetics

Mendel's paper of 1865 went unnoticed except for an occasional reference in scientific literature. In 1900 it was rediscovered by scientists, when his theory was generalized as Mendel's laws of heredity. That date also marked the beginning of the science of heredity, which in 1906 was named genetics. Not even after 1900 was Mendel's theory acknowledged as being generally valid, and the Darwinian selection theory was often considered to oppose the Mendelian theory.

Later, it was demonstrated that Mendel had also observed such phenomena as intermediate inheritance, complete linkage, additive gene action, and gene interaction, and that he himself appreciated the Darwinian selection theory and refused to accept the hypothesis of pangenesis. The synthesis of the Darwinian and Mendelian theories was first proved by S. S. Tchetverikoff in 1926 and finally by R. A. Fisher in 1930, Sewall Wright in 1931, and J. B. S. Haldane in 1932.

Since that time Mendel's work has been reappraised. His hypothesis of hereditary particles turned out to be quite general and provided the elementary principle of heredity in all forms of life from viruses to man. From this viewpoint his laws of heredity appear to be only the subordinate principles of Mendel's main discovery, which furnishes proof of the existence of genes as determining the whole character of each organism.

Further Reading

The best biography of Mendel is Hugo Iltis, Life of Mendel (1924; trans. 1932). Mendel's papers on hybridization are published in English in J. H. Bennett, ed., Experiments in Plant Hybridization (1965). Curt Stern and Eva R. Sherwood, eds., The Origin of Genetics: A Mendel Source Book (1966), is a translation of Mendel's papers. It also contains 11 letters that Mendel wrote to Karl Nägeli, which give basic information on Mendel's experiments with different plant species. Information on Mendel and on the early development of genetics is published in the series "Folia Mendeliana Musei Moraviae." The historical development of Mendelism is treated in Robert C. Olby, Origins of Mendelism (1966). The historical development of modern genetics is outlined in L. C. Dunn, ed., Genetics in the 20th Century: Essays on the Progress of Genetics during its First Fifty Years (1951).

Mendel, Gregor Johann (Heinzendorf, Austria, 1822-84, Brünn, now Brno), laid the foundation for a scientific approach to human genetics by assessing hereditary factors with the aid of mathematical formulae. An Augustinian monk (1843), he studied science at Vienna. By his experimental research he established theories which formed the basis for progressive investigations and are known as the Mendelsche Gesetze (Mendel's Laws, 1865). Mendelism has since the turn of the century been increasingly applied in the medical and sociological field. In 1860 Mendel became abbot of his monastery at Brünn.

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) is the founding father of experimental genetics. His work with the garden pea, Pisum sativuum , was not consistent with the nineteenth-century ideas of inheritance. Mendel was the first to demonstrate transmission of distinct physical characteristics from generation to generation.

An Austrian biologist and monk of the nineteenth century. Mendel discovered the basic laws of genetics by doing experiments with pea plants.

Gregor Johann Mendel
Born	July 20, 1822(1822-07-20) Heinzendorf bei Odrau, Silesia, Austrian Empire
Died	January 6, 1884 (aged 61) Brno, Austria-Hungary
Nationality	Austria-Hungary
Ethnicity	German
Fields	Genetics
Institutions	Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno
Alma mater	University of Vienna
Known for	Discovering genetics
Religious stance	Roman Catholic

Gregor Johann Mendel (July 20, 1822^[1] – January 6, 1884) was an Augustinian priest and scientist, who gained posthumous fame as the figurehead of the new science of genetics for his study of the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants. Mendel showed that the inheritance of these traits follows particular laws, which were later named after him. The significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century. The independent rediscovery of these laws formed the foundation of the modern science of genetics.^[2]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Rediscovery of Mendel's work 3 Gallery 4 See also 5 References 6 Bibliography 7 External links

Biography

Mendel was born into an ethnic German family in Heinzendorf bei Odrau, Austrian Silesia, Austrian Empire (now Hynčice, Czech Republic), and was baptized two days later. He was the son of Anton and Rosine Mendel, and had one older sister and one younger. They lived and worked on a farm which had been owned by the Mendel family for at least 130 years.^[3] During his childhood, Mendel worked as a gardener, studied beekeeping, and as a young man attended the Philosophical Institute in Olomouc in 1840–1843. Upon recommendation of his physics teacher Friedrich Franz, he entered the Augustinian Abbey of St Thomas in Brno in 1843. Born Johann Mendel, he took the name Gregor upon entering monastic life. In 1851 he was sent to the University of Vienna to study, returning to his abbey in 1853 as a teacher, principally of physics.

Gregor Mendel, who is known as the "father of modern genetics", was inspired by both his professors at university and his colleagues at the monastery to study variation in plants, and he conducted his study in the monastery's garden. Between 1856 and 1863 Mendel cultivated and tested some 29,000 pea plants (i.e., Pisum sativum). This study showed that one in four pea plants had purebred recessive alleles, two out of four were hybrid and one out of four were purebred dominant. His experiments brought forth two generalizations, the Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment, which later became known as Mendel's Laws of Inheritance.

Mendel did read his paper, Experiments on Plant Hybridization, at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia in 1865. When Mendel's paper was published in 1866 in Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brünn,^[4] it had little impact and was cited about three times over the next thirty-five years. (Notably, Charles Darwin was unaware of Mendel's paper, according to Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man.) His paper was criticized at the time, but is now considered a seminal work.

After Mendel completed his work with peas, he turned to experimenting with honeybees, in order to extend his work to animals. He produced a hybrid strain (so vicious they were destroyed), but failed to generate a clear picture of their heredity because of the difficulties in controlling mating behaviours of queen bees. He also described novel plant species, and these are denoted with the botanical author abbreviation "Mendel".

Elevated as abbot in 1868, his scientific work largely ended as Mendel became consumed with his increased administrative responsibilities, especially a dispute with the civil government over their attempt to impose special taxes on religious institutions.^[5] At first Mendel's work was rejected, and it was not widely accepted until after he died. At that time most biologists held the idea of blending inheritance, and Charles Darwin's efforts to explain inheritance through a theory of pangenesis were unsuccessful. Mendel's ideas were rediscovered in the early twentieth century, and in the 1930s and 1940s the modern synthesis combined Mendelian genetics with Darwin's theory of natural selection.

Mendel died on January 6, 1884, at age 61, in Brno, Moravia, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic), from chronic nephritis. Czech composer Leoš Janáček played the organ at his funeral. After his death the succeeding abbot burned all papers in Mendel's collection, to mark an end to the disputes over taxation.^[6]

Rediscovery of Mendel's work

Dominant and recessive phenotypes. (1) Parental generation. (2) F1 generation. (3) F2 generation.

It was not until the early 20th century that the importance of his ideas was realized. By 1900, research aimed at finding a successful theory of discontinuous inheritance rather than blending inheritance led to independent duplication of his work by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, and the rediscovery of Mendel's writings and laws. Both acknowledged Mendel's priority, and it is thought probable that de Vries did not understand the results he had found until after reading Mendel.^[2] Though Erich von Tschermak was originally also credited with rediscovery, this is no longer accepted because he did not understand Mendel's laws.^[7] Though de Vries later lost interest in Mendelism, other biogists started to establish genetics as a science.^[2]

Mendel's results were quickly replicated, and genetic linkage quickly worked out. Biologists flocked to the theory, even though it was not yet applicable to many phenomena, it sought to give a genotypic understanding of heredity which they felt was lacking in previous studies of heredity which focused on phenotypic approaches. Most prominent of these latter approaches was the biometric school of Karl Pearson and W.F.R. Weldon, which was based heavily on statistical studies of phenotype variation. The strongest opposition to this school came from William Bateson, who perhaps did the most in the early days of publicising the benefits of Mendel's theory (the word "genetics", and much of the discipline's other terminology, originated with Bateson). This debate between the biometricians and the Mendelians was extremely vigorous in the first two decades of the twentieth century, with the biometricians claiming statistical and mathematical rigor, whereas the Mendelians claimed a better understanding of biology. In the end, the two approaches were combined as the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology, especially by work conducted by R. A. Fisher as early as 1918.

Mendel's experimental results have later been the object of considerable dispute.^[6][8] Fisher analyzed the results of the F2 (second filial) ratio and found them to be implausibly close to the exact ratio of 3 to 1.^[9] Only a few would accuse Mendel of scientific malpractice or call it a scientific fraud — reproduction of his experiments has demonstrated the validity of his hypothesis — however, the results have continued to be a mystery for many, though it is often cited as an example of confirmation bias. This might arise if he detected an approximate 3 to 1 ratio early in his experiments with a small sample size, and continued collecting more data until the results conformed more nearly to an exact ratio. It is sometimes suggested that he may have censored his results, and that his seven traits each occur on a separate chromosome pair, an extremely unlikely occurrence if they were chosen at random. In fact, the genes Mendel studied occurred in only four linkage groups, and only one gene pair (out of 21 possible) is close enough to show deviation from independent assortment; this is not a pair that Mendel studied.

Gallery

Gregor Johann Mendel - memorial plaque in Olomouc

Gregor Mendel, frontispiece from "Mendel's principles of heredity: A Defence"

The Augustinian Abbey of St Thomas, Brno

Bust of Mendel at Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry Brno, Czech Republic

See also

• List of Austrian scientists
• Mendelian inheritance
• Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry Brno (named after Mendel since 1994)
• Mendel Polar Station in Antarctica
• Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno
• Mendel Museum of Genetics
• Mendelian error

References

1. ^ July 20 is his birthday; often mentioned is July 22, the date of his baptism. Biography of Mendel at the Mendel Museum
2. ^ ^{a b c} Bowler, Peter J. (2003). Evolution: the history of an idea. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23693-9. 
3. ^ Gregor Mendel, Alain F. Corcos, Floyd V. Monaghan, Maria C. Weber "Gregor Mendel's Experiments on Plant Hybrids: A Guided Study", Rutgers University Press, 1993.
4. ^ Mendel, J.G. (1866). Versuche über Plflanzenhybriden Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereines in Brünn, Bd. IV für das Jahr, 1865 Abhandlungen:3-47. For the English translation, see: Druery, C.T and William Bateson (1901). "Experiments in plant hybridization". Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 26: 1–32. http://www.esp.org/foundations/genetics/classical/gm-65.pdf. Retrieved 2009-10-09. 
5. ^ Windle, B.C.A.; Translated Looby, John (1911). "Mendel, Mendelism". Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10180b.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-02. 
6. ^ ^{a b} Carlson, Elof Axel (2004). "Doubts about Mendel's integrity are exaggerated". Mendel's Legacy. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. pp. 48–49. ISBN 978-087969675-7. 
7. ^ Mayr E. (1982). The Growth of Biological Thought. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp. 730. ISBN 0-674-36446-5. 
8. ^ Hartl, Daniel L.; Fairbanks, Daniel J. (2007 March). "Mud Sticks: On the Alleged Falsification of Mendel's Data". Genetics 175 (3): 975–979. PMID 17384156. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1840063. Retrieved 2008-08-08. "[The] allegation of deliberate falsification can finally be put to rest, because on closer analysis it has proved to be unsupported by convincing evidence.". 
9. ^ Fisher, R. A. (1936). Has Mendel's work been rediscovered? Annals of Science 1:115-137.

Bibliography

• Cheryl Bardoe Gregor Mendel: The Friar who grew peas., HN Abrams, 2006.
• William Bateson Mendel's Principles of Heredity, a Defense, First Edition, London: Cambridge University Press, 1902. On-line Facsimile Edition: Electronic Scholarly Publishing, Prepared by Robert Robbins
• Robin Marantz Henig, Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, the Father of Genetics, Houghton Mifflin, May, 2000, hardcover, 292 pages, ISBN 0-395-97765-7; trade paperback, Houghton Mifflin, May, 2001, ISBN 0-618-12741-0
• Robert Lock, Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, Heredity and Evolution, London, 1906
• Vítězslav Orel, Gregor Mendel: the first geneticist, Oxford University Press. 1996, ISBN 0198547749
• Reginald Punnett, Mendelism, Cambridge, 1905
• Curt Stern and Sherwood ER (1966) The Origin of Genetics.
• Colin Tudge In Mendel's footnotes ISBN 0-09-928875-3 book about Gregor Mendel
• Bartel Leendert van der Waerden Mendel's experiments Centaurus 12, 275-288 (1968) refutes allegations about "data smoothing"
• James Walsh, Catholic Churchmen in Science, Philadelphia: Dolphin Press, 1906
• Ronald A. Fisher, "Has Mendel's Work Been Rediscovered?" Annals of Science, Volume 1, (1936): 115-137. Discusses the possibility of fraud in his research.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gregor Mendel

• Mendel's Paper in English
• Mendel Museum of Genetics
• Biography, bibliography and access to digital sources in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
• 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia entry, "Mendel, Mendelism"
• Online Mendelian Inheritence in Man
• Augustinian Abbey of St. Thomas at Brno
• A photographic tour of St. Thomas' Abbey, Brno, Czech Republic
• Johann Gregor Mendel: Why his discoveries were ignored for 35 (72) years (German)
• This has the basics of Mendel and is more appropriate in style for a GCSE student
• Masaryk University to rebuild Mendel’s greenhouse | Brno Now
• "Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)". http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/AB/BC/Gregor_Mendel.html. Retrieved 2008-01-22. 
• "Biography of Gregor Mendel". http://mendel.imp.ac.at/mendeljsp/biography/biography.jsp. Retrieved 2008-01-22. 
• "Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics". http://www.fieldmuseum.org/mendel/. Retrieved 2008-01-22. 
• Gregor Johann Mendel at Find a Grave

Persondata
NAME	Mendel, Gregor Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Genetics
DATE OF BIRTH	July 20, 1822(1822-07-20)
PLACE OF BIRTH	Heinzendorf, Silesia
DATE OF DEATH	January 6, 1884
PLACE OF DEATH	Brno, Moravia

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