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Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life is a book by Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb about evolutionary biology. First published by the MIT Press imprint Bradford Books in 2005, the book challenges the gene-centric view of evolution for what the authors consider its excessive ...
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. [1] [2] It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. [3]
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic information of their parents.
Several major ideas about evolution came together in the population genetics of the early 20th century to form the modern synthesis of Huxley's title, including genetic variation, natural selection, and particulate inheritance. This ended the eclipse of Darwinism and supplanted a variety of non-Darwinian theories of evolution.
Population genetics began as a reconciliation of Mendelian inheritance and biostatistics models. Natural selection will only cause evolution if there is enough genetic variation in a population. Before the discovery of Mendelian genetics, one common hypothesis was blending inheritance. But with blending inheritance, genetic variance would be ...
The transgenerational inheritance of a stress response can contribute to the heritable plasticity of the organism, allowing it to better survive environmental stresses. It also helps add to the genetic variation of specific lineages with little variability, giving a greater chance of reproductive success .
Genetic variation can be identified at many levels. Identifying genetic variation is possible from observations of phenotypic variation in either quantitative traits (traits that vary continuously and are coded for by many genes, e.g., leg length in dogs) or discrete traits (traits that fall into discrete categories and are coded for by one or a few genes, e.g., white, pink, or red petal color ...
Classical genetics is often referred to as the oldest form of genetics, and began with Gregor Mendel's experiments that formulated and defined a fundamental biological concept known as Mendelian inheritance. Mendelian inheritance is the process in which genes and traits are passed from a set of parents to their offspring.