AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -The differences in the characters (or traits) among the individuals of a species is called variation. Variations can be in the morphological appearance (phenotype) or the genetic makeup (genotype) of an organism. It can be caused by change in the DNA sequence (mutation), random mating, etc.

Detailed explanation-2: -Genetic variation refers to differences among the genomes of members of the same species.

Detailed explanation-3: -Heritability is a measure of how well differences in people’s genes account for differences in their traits. Traits can include characteristics such as height, eye color, and intelligence, as well as disorders like schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder.

Detailed explanation-4: -The heritable variation is defined as the variance of the breeding values among individuals, A 2, which is known as the additive genetic variance. (Note that additive genetic variance excludes transient effects transmitted to offspring, such as additive-by-additive epistatic effects).

Detailed explanation-5: -Genetic variation can be caused by mutation (which can create entirely new alleles in a population), random mating, random fertilization, and recombination between homologous chromosomes during meiosis (which reshuffles alleles within an organism’s offspring).