BRAINCAKENormal Distribution
Many characteristics that show continuous variation, such as height or leaf length, are affected by many genes and by the environment. When these are measured in a large sample and plotted as a frequency histogram, the data often form a normal distribution.
A normal distribution curve is bell-shaped and symmetrical about the mean. Most values lie close to the mean and fewer values lie towards the extremes.
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Key terms in this lesson
- standard deviation
- A measure of the spread of a set of data around the mean; a small standard deviation means the values are close to the mean and a large standard deviation means they are more spread out.
- continuous variation
- Variation in which individuals within a population show a range of values for a characteristic, with no distinct categories, usually produced by the combined effect of several genes and the environment.
More in Biodiversity
- Comparing mRNA
- Comparing Amino-acids Sequences
- Sampling
- Random Sampling
- Mean, median and Mode
- Mean and Standard Deviation
- Interpreting Graphs 1
- Interpreting Graphs 2
All 33 lessons in Biodiversity · All AQA AS-level Biology topics