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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]
A clade is characterized by one or more apomorphies: derived character states present in the first member of the taxon, inherited by its descendants (unless secondarily lost), and not inherited by any other taxa. Paraphyly: A paraphyletic assemblage is one that is constructed by taking a clade and removing one or more smaller clades. [32]
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] Inherited traits are controlled by genes and the complete set of genes within an organism's genome is called its genotype. [2]
The terms "primitive" and "advanced", etc., are not properly used in referring to a species or an organism as any species or organism is a mosaic of primitive and derived traits. Using "primitive" and "advanced" may lead to "ladder thinking" (compare the Latin term scala naturae 'ladder of nature'), [ 8 ] which is the thought that all species ...
Natural Selection is the process by which organisms that are better adapted to their environment are selected to survive and reproduce more offspring. Natural selection selects for the phenotype or the characteristics of an organism that gives the organism a reproductive advantage in which it becomes the gene pool of a population.
For example, horses have one walking digit and domestic bovines two on each foot. Various other land vertebrates have also reduced or lost digits. [3] Similarly, laurasiathere perissodactyls and afrothere paenungulates have several features in common, to the point of there being no obvious distinction among basal taxa of both groups. [4]
A small fraction of the genes in an organism's genome control the organism's development. These genes are called the developmental-genetic toolkit. They are highly conserved among phyla, meaning that they are ancient and very similar in widely separated groups of animals. Differences in deployment of toolkit genes affect the body plan and the ...
Top: An ancestral gene duplicates to produce two paralogs (Genes A and B). A speciation event produces orthologs in the two daughter species. Bottom: in a separate species, an unrelated gene has a similar function (Gene C) but has a separate evolutionary origin and so is an analog.