ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Genotypes

Genotypes

A genotype is the genetic makeup of an individual organism. Biologists use the term genotype to distinguish from phenotype, which consists of the observable characteristics of an organism.

Grades

8 - 12

Subjects

Biology, Genetics

Image

Female portrait

Many physical traits like hair color and texture, eye color, and skin color are determined by the genotypes that parents pass down to their children.

Photograph by Martin Schoeller
Many physical traits like hair color and texture, eye color, and skin color are determined by the genotypes that parents pass down to their children.

In one sense, the term “genotype”—like the term “genome”—refers to the entire set of genes in the cells of an organism. In a narrower sense, however, it can refer to different alleles, or variant forms of a gene, for particular traits, or characteristics. An organism’s genotype is in contrast with its phenotype, which is the individual’s observable characteristics, resulting from interactions between the genotype and the environment.

There is a complex connection between the genotype and the phenotype. Since the phenotype is the result of an interaction between genes and the environment, different environments can lead to different traits in individuals with a particular genotype.

In addition, different genotypes can lead to the same phenotype. This happens because genes have different alleles. For some genes and traits, certain alleles are dominant while others are recessive. A dominant trait is one that shows up in an individual, even if the individual has only one allele">allele that produces the trait.

Some aspects of eye color work this way. Brown eyes, for instance, are dominant over blue eyes. This is because a pigment called melanin produces the brown color, while having no pigment leads to blue eyes. Having just one allele for the dark pigment is enough to make your eyes brown. There actually are several different pigments that affect eye color, each pigment resulting from a particular gene. This is the reason why people can have green eyes, hazel eyes, or any of a range of eye colors apart from blue or brown.

When discussing genotype, biologists use uppercase letters to stand for dominant alleles and lowercase letters to stand for recessive alleles. With eye color, for instance, “B” stands for a brown allele and “b” stands for a blue allele. An organism with two dominant alleles for a trait is said to have a homozygous dominant genotype. Using the eye color example, this genotype is written BB. An organism with one dominant allele and one recessive allele is said to have a heterozygous genotype. In our example, this genotype is written Bb. Finally, the genotype of an organism with two recessive alleles is called homozygous recessive. In the eye color example, this genotype is written bb.

Of these three genotypes, only bb, the homozygous recessive genotype, will produce a phenotype of blue eyes. The heterozygous genotype and the homozygous dominant genotype both will produce brown eyes, though only the heterozygous genotype can pass on the gene for blue eyes.

The homozygous dominant, homozygous recessive, and heterozygous genotypes only account for some genes and some traits. Most traits actually are more complex, because many genes have more than two alleles, and many alleles interact in complex ways.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Director
Tyson Brown, National Geographic Society
Author
National Geographic Society
Production Managers
Gina Borgia, National Geographic Society
Jeanna Sullivan, National Geographic Society
Program Specialists
Sarah Appleton, National Geographic Society, National Geographic Society
Margot Willis, National Geographic Society
other
Last Updated

September 17, 2024

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

Media

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service.

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Related Resources