Pleiotropy correlations and responses to selection most often exemplify pleiotropy. Pleiotropic traits had been previously recognized in the scientific community but had not been experimented on until Gregor Mendel's 1866 pea plant experiment. Mendel recognized that certain pea plant traits (seed coat color, flower color, and axial spots) seemed to be inherited together; however, their correlation to a single gene has never been proven. The term "pleiotropie" was first coined by Ludwig Plate in his Festschrift, which was published in 1910. He originally defined pleiotropy as occurring when "several characteristics are dependent upon ... [inheritance]; these characteristics will then always appear
Christian Carl André Christian Carl André Christian Carl André (1763-1831) was a leading 19th century European natural scientist, publisher, economist and educator. He was among the pioneers in the study of heredity whose vision paved the way for the research of Gregor Mendel, the founder of modern genetics. Christian Carl André was born on 20 March 1763 in the German town of Hildburghausen. He studied at the University of Jena, and worked as a teacher in Eisenach and at the Schnepfenthal Salzmann School in Gotha. Then from 1798 to 1820 he lived in Brno, then within the Habsburg empire, where he headed the