Joel's+Glossary

GLOSSARY

__//**Traits-**//__ A trait is a notable feature or quality in a person. Each of us has different combination of traits that make us unique. Traits are passed on from generation to generation. We inherit traits from our parents, and we pass them on to our children.

//__**Genotype-**__// The particular combination of __alleles__ that come together in an organism.

__//**Phenotype-**//__ What the genotypes actually look like.

__//**Dominant-**//__ Describes a gene that causes a parental characteristic it controls to occur in any offspring, or describes the characteristic itself.

__//**Recessive-**//__ Describes a characteristic or trait determined by a recessive gene. Used to describe a gene that produces an effect in an organism only when its matching allele is identical. __//**Homozygote-**//__ An organism that has two identical genes at the same place on two corresponding chromosomes. __//**Hetrozygote-**//__ An organism possessing two dissimilar forms of a gene for a heritable characteristic, which may therefore produce offspring differing from the parents and each other in that characteristic.

__//**Codominant-**//__ Describes genes that each have equal effect in making the character they control appear in offspring.