In Shorthorn cattle, both red coat color and white coat color are true breeding. Crosses of red cattle x white cattle produce offspring that are uniformly reddish brown but thickly sprinkled with white hairs. This type of coat color is called roan. Crosses of roan x roan produce 1/4 red : 2/4 roan: 1/4 white. What kind of genetic inheritance can explain these results

Incomplete domiance

Explanation:

The type of genetic inheritance that can explain the result is incomplete dominance.

In incomplete dominance genetic inheritance, one of the two alleles representing a gene exert a somewhat incomplete effects on the other allele. The allele that is supposed to be recessive is expressed, although in very minute quantity.

An example of incomplete dominance can also be illustrated in a cross involving a white flowered plant and a red flower plant which produce offspring with pink flowers. The red allele exhibited incomplete dominance over the white allele.

a. to encourage apoptosis

not necessarily. higher fitness requires the organism to be reproductive successful. for example, an organism at age 10 with 15 offspring is much more fit than an organism at age 15 with only 5 offspring.