noun Genetics.
- law of segregation.
- law of independent assortment.
n.
- One of two principles of heredity first formulated by Gregor Mendel, founded on his experiments with pea plants and stating that the members of a pair of homologous chromosomes segregate during meiosis and are distributed to different gametes.law of segregation
- The second of these two principles, stating that each member of a pair of homologous chromosomes segregates during meiosis independently of the members of other pairs, so that alleles carried on different chromosomes are distributed randomly to the gametes.law of independent assortment
- Any of the principles first proposed by Gregor Mendel to describe the inheritance of traits passed from one generation to the next.♦ Mendel’s first law (also called the law of segregation) states that during the formation of reproductive cells (gametes), pairs of hereditary factors (genes) for a specific trait separate so that offspring receive one factor from each parent.♦ Mendel’s second law (also called the law of independent assortment) states that chance determines which factor for a particular trait is inherited.♦ Mendel’s third law (also called the law of dominance) states that one of the factors for a pair of inherited traits will be dominant and the other recessive, unless both factors are recessive. See more at inheritance.