A gene is a section of genetic material that codes for a specific property or functional product. Genes occur on chromosomes made of DNA; alternative forms are alleles, each gene occupies a locus, and an organism’s complete gene combination forms its genotype. section 7.2.1
Toy organism
A DNA molecule can contain four genes describing appetite, movement, feet, and skin. Their alleles might specify herbivore, flying, wings, and feathers. Together, these alleles form a genotype whose observable traits form the phenotype through interaction with the environment. section 7.2.1
In a genetic algorithm, genes represent parameters of a candidate solution. Concatenating those genes creates a chromosome, so choosing an encoding—binary, real-valued, or permutation—directly affects search performance. For a ticket-price solution, an 8-bit chromosome encodes prices from 75.0 to 235.0 at 0.1 precision. section 7.3.2
Figure 7.4 Genotype, phenotype, and taxonomic classification
Use the genotype–phenotype figure to connect gene combinations with observable characteristics and biological classification. section 7.2.1
