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Phenotype

From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

The phenotype is the observable total physical appearance or selected expressed traits of the genotype in an individual organism or group of oragnisms effected by environmental influences. The traits or outward expressions of an organisms genetic makeup include eye color, skin color, hair color, weight or feeding habits, etc.

1 Identifying Phenotypes
2 References
3 External Links
4 See Also

Identifying Phenotypes

It is quite hard to actually observe the genotype of an organism compared rather to its phenotype from which classical genetics was able to deduce gene function. Phenotypes rely on an underlying heritable mechanism of genetic variation through what is called allelomorphs or alleles. This enables a fundamental way to observe small change within evolutionism, or it is the observed change predicted by creationism through the mechanism of natural selection.

A total threshold of the triggered change in the organism from the immediate environment is seen. Then through that direct human observation the structure of the organism's homology in question is isolated. It is then taken further to the molecular level and not only is the effected structure isolated but the genes that constitute such a structure are then isolated as well. Such genes, as one study has indicated are responsible for the abdominal pigmentation changes in the female Drosophila melanogaster which were triggered by environmental fluctuation in temperature. ^[1]

When the environment triggers the change in the organism it is called phenotypic plasticity. However regardless of the trigger mechanism it is thus concluded that the genes in question or the phenotype are a region isolated from the total genotype usually for study and experimentation.