Specific aspect of phenotype, particularly one that varies phenotypically between .

Characters are groupings of phenotypic aspects, e.g., , , , , ability to digest the sugar lactose, etc. What all of these characters have in common is that they can vary between individuals– versus , green versus brown, heavy versus light, short versus tall, versus not, etc. The different variants, in turn, are described as traits.

Much of Mendelian genetics and, indeed, the science of genetics more generally, involves an exploration of variation of phenotype particularly in terms of the underlying genetic variation, that is, variation in genotype.

When a focuses on a specific phenotype they are considering a specific character. When these same individuals consider how that character varies as a function of specific – something that geneticists are quite fond of doing – what they are doing is considering different traits. Indeed, a central tool of genetics is to explore the impact of specific mutations on characters, that is, towards discovery associateions between specific alleles with specific traits?