Heritability

📖 Full definition

Heritability is a number between 0 and 1 (or 0 and 100%) that indicates how much the diversity of an observable trait is due to genes rather than environment. Height has a heritability of around 80% (very genetic). Spoken language has a heritability of 0% (entirely environmental). Facial traits have high but imperfect heritability (~70-90% depending on the trait).

💡 Concrete example

Heritability of nose shape is estimated at 66%: 66% of the variability observed in a population comes from genes, the rest from environmental factors (lesions, ageing, expression).

🔄 Synonyms

heredity transmission

🔗 See also

• Genotype →
• Phenotype →