An individual with two different alleles for a gene is termed what?

An individual with two different alleles for a gene is referred to as heterozygous. This term describes a genotype that contains one dominant and one recessive allele for a particular trait. In contrast, homozygous would indicate the presence of two identical alleles, either both dominant or both recessive.

Understanding this concept is vital because allele combinations can influence the phenotypic expression of traits. For example, if the dominant allele represents a trait like brown eyes and the recessive allele represents blue eyes, a heterozygous individual carrying one of each allele would express the brown eye phenotype, demonstrating how dominance can affect expression despite having two different alleles.

Recognizing the distinction between heterozygous and homozygous genotypes allows for better predictions in genetic inheritance patterns and phenotypic outcomes in offspring.