Organisms that exhibit different phenotypes in different env

Organisms that exhibit different phenotypes in different environments are said to exhibit phenotypic plasticity. Why is it important to study reaction norms to understand this class of phenotypic expression? State your answer briefly.

Solution

An organism\'s ability to change its phenotype under varied environmental conditions is known as phenotypic plasticity.It is important to study reaction norms to understand this class of phenotypic expression because through reaction norms,we can come to know about the pattern of expression of phenotypes corresponding to a single genotype across various environmental conditions.Through reaction norms, we can actually plot values for a specific phenotypic trait across different environments or treatments and visualise the phenotypic pattern. In other ways we can say that study of reaction norms helps us visualise how a particular genotype interacts with different environments to give different phenotypes and thus exhibits phenotypic plasticity.