I/GCSE Biology - Continuous and Discontinuous variation

Diagram: The difference of continuous and discontinuous variation

Continuous 👇 👇 👇

• This is when individuals in a population vary within a range – there are no distinct categories e.g. humans can be any height within a range, not just tall or short. More examples:
  • Animals – humans can be a mass within a range.
  • Microorganisms – the width of e.coli bacteria varies within a range.
  • Plants – e.g. a tree can have any number of leaves within a range.
• In I/GCSE Biology, a graph of continuous variation is an example of a normal distribution curve. Most people would be around the mean height and fewer people would be at the extremes.

Discontinuous 👇 👇 👇

This is when there are two or more distinct categories – each individual falls into only one of these categories, there are no intermediates. Examples in I/GCSE Biology:

• Animals – humans can be only one blood group (see graph below).
• Microorganisms – e.g. bacteria are either antibiotic resistant or not.
• Plants – the colour of a courgette is either yellow, dark green or light green

That's the end of the topic!

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Drafted by Joey (Biology)

Reference:

https://biology-igcse.weebly.com/continuous-discontinous.html