Variation Contents Environmental Variation n Genetic Variation n

Variation

Contents Environmental Variation n Genetic Variation n

Environmental Variation n Causes: climate, diet, lifestyle, culture, accidents n Environment affects how our inherited characteristics develop n Twins who grow up separately might become very different: n e. g. fashion, taste, hair colour, build, personality, aptitudes

Genetic Variation n Causes: - Mixing of parent information during meiosis - Gamete forms from a unique combination of genetic information n Siblings can have both similar and very different traits n They are mixtures of their parents, each sibling can receive different characteristics of their parents n e. g. natural hair colour, eye colour, blood type

Continuous vs. Discontinuous n Continuous Variation - Small differences between individuals - Greatly affected by environment - e. g. height, shoe size, length of hair - plotted on a line graph n Discontinuous Variation - Differences that are classed or categorised - Not greatly affected by environment - e. g. blood group, sex, hair colour, eye colour - plotted on a bar chart or pie chart

Summary n Environmental Variation - Variation due to an individual’s environment - e. g. scars, fashion, taste, aptitude n Genetic Variation - Variation due to inherited characteristics from parents - e. g. blood type, eye colour, inherited diseases n Continuous Variation - small differences between individuals e. g. height n Discontinuous Variation - Classes or categories of differences e. g. sex, blood group