A phenotypic trait, simply trait, or character state is a distinct variant of a phenotypic characteristic of an organism; it may be either inherited or determined environmentally, but typically occurs as a combination of the two. For example, having eye color is a character of an organism, while blue, brown and hazel versions of eye colour are traits. ...

In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness.Secondly, it is a state reached by the population during that process. Thirdly, it is a phenotypic trait or adaptive trait, with a functional role in each individual organism, that is …

The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material. Genotype can also be used to refer to the alleles or variants an individual carries in a particular gene or genetic location. The number of alleles an individual can have in a specific gene depends on the number of copies of each chromosome found in that species, also referred to as ploidy.

Phenotypic plasticity refers to some of the changes in an organism's behavior, ... Selection experiments and experimental evolution approaches have shown that plasticity is a trait that can evolve when under direct selection and also as a correlated response to selection on the average values of particular traits.

Origin of term. The term genome was created in 1920 by Hans Winkler, professor of botany at the University of Hamburg, Germany.The Oxford Dictionary suggests the name is a blend of the words gene and chromosome. However, see omics for a more thorough discussion. A few related -ome words already existed, such as biome and rhizome, forming a vocabulary into which …

In genetics, the phenotype (from Ancient Greek φαίνω (phaínō) 'to appear, show, shine', and τύπος (túpos) 'mark, type') is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological properties, its behavior, and the products of …

The branches of science known informally as omics are various disciplines in biology whose names end in the suffix -omics, such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, phenomics and transcriptomics.Omics aims at the collective characterization and quantification of pools of biological molecules that translate into the structure, function, and dynamics of an …

Northern Europe might be defined roughly to include some or all of the following areas: British Isles, Fennoscandia, the peninsula of Jutland, the Baltic plain that lies to the east and the many islands that lie offshore from mainland Northern Europe and the main European continent. In some cases, Greenland is also included, although it is only politically European, comprising …

All modern humans are classified into the species Homo sapiens, coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 1735 work Systema Naturae. The generic name "Homo" is a learned 18th-century derivation from Latin homō, which refers to humans of either sex. The word human can refer to all members of the Homo genus, although in common usage it generally just refers to Homo sapiens, the only …

Mendelian inheritance (Mendelism) is a type of biological inheritance following the principles originally proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and 1866, re-discovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, and later popularized by William Bateson. These principles were initially controversial. When Mendel's theories were integrated with the Boveri–Sutton chromosome …

The heritability of a trait is the proportion of the total (phenotypic) variance (σ 2 P) that is attributable to genetic variance, whether it be the full genotypic variance, or some component of it. It quantifies the degree to which phenotypic variability is due to genetics: but the precise meaning depends upon which genetical variance ...

Tay–Sachs disease is a genetic disorder that results in the destruction of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. The most common form is infantile Tay–Sachs disease, which becomes apparent around three to six months of age, with the baby losing the ability to turn over, sit, or crawl. This is then followed by seizures, hearing loss, and inability to move, with death usually occurring ...

Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same species exhibit different characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most animals and some plants. Differences may include secondary sex characteristics, size, weight, colour, markings, or behavioural or cognitive traits.. These differences may be …

A trait or character in biology is a feature of a living thing. It is part of an organism's phenotype.. Every living thing, from tiny organisms like bacteria, to plants, animals and humans, has some characteristics which make it special. Thus an elephant has tusks, large size and weight, large ears and very large molar teeth ().These are typical characters of the African and Indian …