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Acquired traits are synonymous with acquired characteristics. They are not passed on to offspring through reproduction. The changes that constitute acquired characteristics can have many manifestations and degrees of visibility, but they all have one thing in common. They change a facet of a living organism's function or structure after birth.
Heredity of phenotypic traits: a father and son with prominent ears and crowns. DNA structure. Bases are in the centre, surrounded by phosphate–sugar chains in a double helix. In humans, eye color is an example of an inherited characteristic: an individual might inherit the "brown-eye trait" from one of the parents. [1]
In an ecological context, traits or ‘characters’ are attributes of an organism that are shared by members of a species. Traits can be shared by all or only a portion of individuals in a population. For example, studies in animal personality often examine traits such as aggressiveness, avoidance of novelty, boldness, exploration and ...
Culture, which was once thought of as a uniquely human trait, is now firmly established as a common trait among animals and is not merely a set of related behaviors passed on by genetic transmission as some have argued. Genetic transmission, like cultural transmission, is a means of passing behavioral traits from one individual to another.
Eye color is an example of a (physical) phenotypic trait. A phenotypic trait, [1] [2] simply trait, or character state [3] [4] 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. [5]
Many aspects of an animal or plant can be correctly called adaptations, though there are always some features whose function remains in doubt. By using the term adaptation for the evolutionary process, and adaptive trait for the bodily part or function (the product), one may distinguish the two different senses of the word. [14] [15] [16] [17]
Therefore, species-specific genetic traits must be inherited, allowing individuals to be successful in their designated environments. There are many environmental examples of sexual selection as an adaptive behavior; one popular example is sexual dimorphism.
Breed specific characteristics, also known as breed traits, are inherited, and purebred animals pass such traits from generation to generation. Thus, all specimens of the same breed carry several genetic characteristics of the original foundation animal(s).