What causes continuous variation?

What causes continuous variation?

Two reasons for continuous variation: Differences in external environmental conditions also produce continuous variation. In nature, each character will be influenced by many environmental variables, some tending to increase it, others to decrease it.

What are examples of continuous variation?

Examples of continuous variation include things like a person’s height and weight. Examples of discontinuous variation include a person’s blood group or the color of a species of bird. These variations can exist for two major reasons.

Why is foot length a continuous variation?

This is because shoe sizes are distinct categories and aren’t measured (a bit of a trick question, as you can be a shoe size 5 or 5½ but you can’t be a shoe size of 5¼!) whereas foot length is continuous variation as it can be measured from a range of values (for example 21.6cm).

Is body size a continuous variation?

continuous variation An assemblage of measurements of a phenotypic character which form a continuous spectrum of values. Examples are body weight, height, or shape, reproductive rate, and various behaviour traits.

Is height discontinuous variation?

Human height is an example of continuous variation. It ranges from that of the shortest person in the world to that of the tallest person. Any height is possible between these values. So it is continuous variation.

Why does continuous variation affect environment?

Discontinuous variation is controlled by alleles of a single gene or a small number of genes. The environment has little effect on this type of variation. Continuous variation is the combined effect of many genes (known as polygenic inheritance) and is often significantly affected by environmental influences.

Is height a discontinuous variation?

Is height genetic or environmental?

Height is largely determined by DNA. However, environmental factors such as nutrition and exercise can affect growth during development.

IS fingerprint continuous variation?

Continuous variation is usually polygenic and involves multiple genes. Where you can think of a choice of discrete types, but not of a meaningful compromise or gradation between those types, that’s discontinuous variation. So, length of fingers varies continuously, but number of fingers varies only discontinuously.

Is hair Colour continuous or discontinuous?

And clearly hair color, skin color and eye color all fall under the definition of a continuous trait, because even though they dont seem to be affected by the environment, they are definitely polygenic traits and show a gradation, so they’re definitely continuous traits.

Why is continuous variation important?

One area of genetics in which continuous variation is important is in plant and animal breeding. Many of the characters that are under selection in breeding programs, such as seed weight or milk production, have complex determination, and the phenotypes show continuous variation in populations.

How does discontinuous variation differ from continuous variation?

The main difference between continuous and discontinuous variation is that continuous variation shows an unbroken range of phenotypes of a particular character in the population whereas discontinuous variation shows two or more separate forms of a character in the population.