Arabidopsis thaliana is a green‑leafed plant, but a variegated form of the plant has both green and yellow leaves. To investigate the mechanism of plant variegation, researchers created a recessive mutation that suppresses variegation in the DNA of the variegated Arabidopsis. When the green mutants were crossed with the variegated types, the first‑generation plants were all variegated, thus confirming the recessive aspect of the mutation. In the second generation ( F 2 ) , the researchers obtained 84 green plants and 216 variegated plants. The researchers also crossed mutant green plants with wild‑type green plants. Not surprisingly, the first generation was 100 % green. In the second generation ( F 2 ) , however, a new phenotype was observed in some of the plants: a transitional variegation occurring only on the first few leaves. We will call them "transitional." Of the 85 plants obtained in F 2 , 65 were wild‑type green, 15 variegated, and 5 transitional. The researchers hypothesized that these phenotypes are the result of two genes following a dominant epistatic model. Use the four‑step process to analyze the data. STATE: Are the data consistent with a dominant epistatic model with a 12 : 3 : 1 distribution in F 2 ? PLAN: Choose the null and alternative hypotheses that should be tested to answer the question.