The Art of Codominance

Codominance . . . an agreement. A mutual understanding between two alleles that agree to show in the offspring. An example of codominance can be eye color. If say the eye color green and blue are both dominant, then one eye will be green and blue. In a Punnett square, a codominant combination of alleles are both capital letters, but they have to be different. Codominance is like peace between two countries. If say they both want a certain piece of land, then they will both agree to have some parts of the land similar to one country, and another piece of land similar to the other country.

Incomplete dominance . . . a disagreement. Both of the alleles want to show but they won't agree on a mutual understanding. Show, they have to blend. An example of incomplete can be flower color. If one flower is red and another is white, then you would think that the dominant allele can take over the recessive allele. However, maybe both the red and white color allele are both dominant and they just won't agree on which one will win. So, because of the laws of nature, the offspring must have a color. Therefore, the colors blend and the flower is pink. If say these alleles were codominant, then there would be spots of red and white. On the other hand, these two alleles couldn't agree on a color so they had to blend.

Incomplete dominance and Codominance are two fascinating features that everyone should all learn sometimes in their lives. With this knowledge we can try to figure out who we got our genes from and if they have an example of an irregular combination of alleles. Incomplete dominance and codominance are all the part of the mysteries of life, and we can observe them and learn more about genes and alleles.