Genetics Flashcards
What’s epigenetics ?
Epigenetics refers to how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work.
What’s a phenotype ?
Refers to an observable trait.
What’s a genotype ?
refers to the genetic makeup of an organism; in other words, it describes an organism’s complete set of genes. In a more narrow sense, the term can be used to refer to the alleles, or variant forms of a gene, that are carried by an organism.
What’s lekking ?
Spatially and temporally clustered aggregations of males in sites where display, mate choice, and copulation take place.
What’s monogyny ?
Monogyny is when a man has only one wife, or a male animal has just one female mate.
What’s polygyny ?
The state or practice of having more than one wife or female mate at a time.
What’s a supergene ?
A supergene is a chromosomal region encompassing multiple neighboring genes that are inherited together because of close genetic linkage.
What’s polymorphism ?
Presence of two or more variant forms of a specific DNA sequence that can occur among different individuals or populations.
What’s polyphenism ?
Form of developmental plasticity in which organisms respond to environmental cues by producing adaptive, discrete, alternative phenotypes known as morphs.
What’s operant conditioning
Method of learning that uses rewards and punishment to modify behavior.
What’s a brood
parasite ?
The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own, usually using egg mimicry, with eggs that resemble the host’s.
What’s the common garden
experiment ?
Common garden experiments are indoor or outdoor plantings of species or populations collected from multiple distinct geographic locations, grown together under shared conditions. These experiments examine a range of questions for theory and application using a variety of methods for analysis.
What’s cross-fostering ?
Cross-fostering is a technique used in animal husbandry, animal science, genetic and nature versus nurture studies, and conservation, whereby offspring are removed from their biological parents at birth and raised by surrogates, typically of a different species, hence ‘cross.
What’s Prägung ?
“empreinte” in German. It’s a behavioral trait that altricial animals experience hours after being born where they develop an extremely close bond with the animals it first meets, usually their parents.
What’s filial imprinting ?
Filial imprinting is a process, readily observed in precocial birds, whereby a social attachment is established between a young animal and an object that is typically (although not necessarily) a parent.