Gregor Mendel's experiments fundamentally demonstrated the patterns of inheritance. By conducting meticulous breeding experiments with pea plants, Mendel was able to isolate specific traits, such as plant height and flower color, and observe how these traits were passed on to the next generation. His meticulous tracking of these traits led to the formulation of key principles, such as the law of segregation and the law of independent assortment.
These principles laid the groundwork for the understanding of inheritance patterns within a population, indicating how traits can be inherited independently of one another and how dominant and recessive alleles contribute to an organism's phenotype. Mendel’s work was groundbreaking because it moved the study of genetics from observational and anecdotal practices to a rigorous scientific framework that elucidates how traits are inherited across generations.
While the other options touch on important genetic concepts—species evolution relates to the broader context of how traits change over time within populations, hybrid vigor refers to the phenomenon of offspring from diverse genetic backgrounds showing improved or enhanced traits, and chromosomal theory pertains to the physical basis of inheritance that Mendel’s findings helped to support—they do not encapsulate the primary focus of Mendel’s experiments, which centered explicitly on the discovery of inheritance patterns.