I’m not super well-versed in genetics so the premise of the question might be wrong, but how’s it possible to capture the genetic code of a species considering genetic variation? Do scientists pick an individual’s genetic code to treat as the default? Do they somehow mark that certain segments of genetic code are prone to change while others are more fundamentally stable? It’s always confused me a little.
Again, sorry if the question doesn’t make much sense and thanks in advance for any answers.
In: Biology
Someone else already mentioned how “mapping” an organism’s genome generally means to determine the location of its genes (i.e. where exactly they are on each chromosome, which barring weird abnormalities is constant for every individual of a species), but especially in modern times that information is obtained through sequencing, and that *does* just give you the genome of whichever individual you sequenced. “The” human reference genome, for example, is kind of averaged between a handful of individuals. There are reference genomes available for particular strains of lab mice.
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