Investigating Diversity
- Genetic diversity within or between species can be compared by looking at:
- The frequency of measurable/observable characteristics
- The base sequence of DNA
- The base sequence of mRNA
- The amino acid sequence of proteins
- Gene technology has caused a shift in methods of investigating genetic diversity from solely looking at observable characteristics
- Variation is caused by genetics & environmental factors
- Variation can be investigated quantitatively within a species by collecting random samples (to reduce bias), calculating a mean value and the standard deviation of the data collected. Then interpreting mean values and their standard deviations.
- Means may vary, showing variation between populations
- A large standard deviation indicates a large amount of variation within a population