what does heterozygous mean in a punnett square
Punnett square Zygosity refers to the grade of similarity between the alleles that determine one specific trait in an organism. In its simplest form, a pair of alleles can be either homozygous or heterozygous. Homozygosity, with homo relating to same while zygous pertains to a zygote, is seen when a combination of either two dominant or two recessive alleles code for the same trait. For example, using 'A' as the representative character for each allele, a homozygous dominant pair's genotype would be depicted as 'AA', while homozygous recessive is shown as 'aa'. Heterozygosity, with hetero associated with different, can only be 'Aa' because 'aA' is not biologically correct. The phenotype of a homozygous dominant pair is 'A', or dominant, while the opposite is true for homozygous recessive. Heterozygous pairs always have a dominant phenotype.[2] To a lesser degree, hemizygosity[3] and nullizygosity[4] can also be seen in gene pairs.
Ploidy Humans are diploid organisms, carrying two complete sets of chromosomes: one set of 23 chromosomes from their father and one set of 23 chromosomes from their mother. The two sets combined provide a full complement of 46 chromosomes. This total number of chromosomes is called the chromosome number. The zygotic number is defined as the number of chromosomes in zygotic cells. Human zygotes are diploid, hence with a zygotic number of 46.