How are some traits heritable?

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Why do some traits, like skin tone, seem to be a mix of both parents, where others like eye & hair colour are from a single parent?

In: Biology

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

So genes are what makes something heritable, you get one set from each parent and for some characteristics there is a single dominant gene and a single recessive one meaning you express only one gene from one parent.
However for a lot of characteristics there are many different genes all contributing to that one characteristic, some may act against each other and some may act with each other, and some may be ‘codominant’, meaning both sets from each parent are expressed.

So for skin tone, there are many genes contributing and some are codominant, meaning there can be a variety of skin tones even if your parents have vastly different or very similar tones. (of course not including tan and other environmental factors)
For eyes, there are actually so many genes that it is possible for anyone to have any colour eyes, regardless of their parents eye colour (though the probability obviously is very low for rarer colours like green, grey and Amber)

Hope this answers your question, please feel free to further query in the comments or by message

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