What does the Law of Dominance state?

The Law of Dominance, formulated by Gregor Mendel through his work with pea plants, states that in a heterozygous individual (one that has two different alleles for a trait), the allele that is dominant will mask the effect of the recessive allele. This means that when one allele is dominant over another, the dominant allele will determine the organism's observable traits, known as the phenotype, while the recessive allele has no observable effect in the presence of the dominant one. This principle is crucial in understanding how traits are inherited and expressed in offspring, as it clarifies that not all alleles have equal influence in determining an organism's characteristics.