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Heredity

The offsprings of all the organisms (plants and animals)

resemble their parents in several aspects. This is only due
to the phenomenon of heredity. Hereditary literally means
tendency of like begets like i.e. all living organisms tend
to produce offsprings like themselves. Hereditary may be
defined as the transmission of characters from one
generation to successive generations or from parents to
their offsprings. Thus, heredity is the cause of similarities
between the offsprings, so that the individuals of the same
parents resemble each other in many aspects. Heredity
involves the transfer of genetic characters from parents to
the offsprings via the egg and sperm. These transferable
characters are called hereditary characters.
Variations

Though offsprings receive all the characters from their

parents, they are not exactly alike. Differences are found
even between the offsprings of the same parents. It is
difficult to find out the identical individuals. The progeny
differs not only in itself but also with the parents. These
differences are called variations. Thus, variations may be
defined as the visible differences between the parents and
the offsprings or between the offsprings of the same
parents.

Types of Variation
There are two types of variation:
Hereditary variation and
Environmental variation
Hereditary variation
The variations which arise as a result of any change in the
structure and function of the gene and are inherited from
one generation to another are called hereditary variation.

Environmental Variations
Two individuals with the same genotype may become
different in phenotype when they come in contact with
different conditions of food, temperature, light, humidity
and other external factors. Such differences among
organisms of similar heredity are known as environmental
variation. These are not heritable.