Chapter 1: Variation Under Domestication Summary and Analysis

Among the many differences between domesticated organisms and wild organisms, the most striking difference is that domestic organisms tend to differ more from one another more than wild organisms do. This difference is in part due to the fact that the conditions of domestic animals tend to be less consistent than for wild animals and to the fact that domestic animals generally do not have a difficulty in obtaining food, while wild animals are constantly in search of it. In addition, once an organism begins to start varying over several generations, it usually does not stop varying.

There are two types of variations, definite and indefinite variations. A definite variation is a variation that is exhibited by most or all of group of organisms. Examples of definite variation would include changes in size due to...