Oh my. Semantics ahoy *G*. I want to say right now that this is silly, but here we go...
I was contradicting Nemisis because he/she called wild type the "dominant genotype". By definition, a genotype is at least one set of alleles. A set of alleles could only be described as the "dominant genotype" if referring to a population in which that particular genotype was found in most individuals in that population, i.e. making it dominant (note not dominant in the sense of dominant versus recessive, rather in that it predominates). Any other usage just doesn't make sense.
For the purposes of Nemisis' discussion, wildtype can only be used to describe the phenotype because the genotype is indeterminate and may not reflect the true wild type genotype, i.e. that
genotype found in the majority of the wild population. Therefore, wild type can only be used to refer to the phenotype in captive animals unless we know their genotype. So going by Lewin, that nice big heavy book that every one uses for genetics, yes, wildtype can describe a genotype, but it describes a specific genotype, a pair (or pairs) of two alleles that is found in the larger part of the wild population.
Now, if Nemisis had said the wild type allele is dominant, that makes sense, given that the wild type allele in albinism is A, rather than a, D rather than d for the developmental pigmentation mutation, M rather than m for melanism and Ax rather than ax for axanthicism.
Any way, I'm arguing semantics/technicalities. Hehe. Jenn, you're the one with the M.Sc. in Biology
, not I.
John
