Do You Know The Difference Between Phenotype and Genotype?

Question

Is one more important than the other when it comes to dog breeding?

Answer 1

Phenotype is what shows, and Genotype is the genetic make-up.

When looking into breeding the Genotype would be more important. I understand that you want something that looks good on the outside, but if it carries some nasty genes, then you wouldn't want to take the risk of breeding.

Answer 2

Well hopefully anyone who passed high school biology does and they sure as heck better before they think about breeding a litter!!

In case some of you don't Phenotype is how the genes exhibit themselves, what you see when you look at it.

Genotype is the actually genetic mark up of the dog.

A dog that is homozygous (pure) dominant for a trait will look the same genotype as a dog that is heterozygous what what they will produce is totally different. In some cases that hidden recessive gene that the heterozygous dog is carrying may be harmless such as the wrong color but in other case if you breed two heterozygous dogs together and end up with a homozygous recessive it could result in a lethal condition, blindness, etc.

Answer 3

Well if you care about the children of the dog, genotype is important because those children will have traits that the parent dog does not show. Your phenotype is all that will show however of the current dog. But, if you want your dog and all its children to have brown fur for example, genotype is very important.

Just for the record, phenotype is the characteristic that shows, genotype is the actual genes, including the one that doesn't show.

Answer 4

Phenotype is the expressed trait, what you actualy see. Genotype is the genetics responsible.

Importance in breeding:

It's possible to have a recessive gene that is there but not expressed as a trait, in which case it'll show up as a genotype (heterozygous), but you won't actualy see it physicaly.

This is important, because if you have two dogs with that same non-expressed trait, there's a chance (25%) that their puppy will express that trait even though neither parent did.

Answer 5

Well phenotype is how the genotype causes something to actually look like.

Genotype is just the genes.....

So I think Genotypes are more important because it decides what your dog actually looks like.

Answer 6

The best way I've heard it explained is your get two genes at each spot (locus) - one from each parent. they more or less play a game of "war" with the high "card" (gene) being the only one that shows. THat hidden card can be the one that is passed on to any offspring so it is important! This is why a black sire in my area has multiple red offspring - he has a red gene hidden this can be important is the red ressive is undesirable in the breed.
But recall what shows (phenotype)can be influnced by envoment - for example a dog starved as a pup may never reach it geneticly set height potental but will pass the inherited size to it pups NOT the heighth it actually grew too...