Question

Which statement best describes human eye color?

1)an incompletely dominant trait that follows non-Mendelian inheritance patterns
2)a polygenic trait that follows non-Mendelian inheritance patterns
3)an incompletely dominant trait that follows Mendelian inheritance patterns
4)a polygenic trait that follows Mendelian inheritance patterns

Answer 1

The most appropriate answer would be option 2.

In humans, the color of the eyes was thought as a simple Mendelian trait however, it has been found that the color of the eye follows polygenic inheritance, that is, it is determined by multiple genes.

A set of 15 genes is responsible for the color of the eyes. Two genes out of these 15 are OCA2 and HERC2 which are present on chromosome 15.

Thus we can conclude that eye colour is polygenic trait which does not follow Mendelian genetics.