Heredity

This article is about the transfer of characteristics from parent to offspring. For the academic journal, see Heredity (journal). For other uses, see Heredity (disambiguation).
"Bloodline" redirects here. For other uses, see Bloodline (disambiguation).
"Hereditary" redirects here. For the 2018 horror film, see Hereditary (film).
Not to be confused with Heritability, a statistic estimating the degree of genetic variation.
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Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic information of their parents. Through heredity, variations between individuals can accumulate and cause species to evolve by natural selection. The study of heredity in biology is genetics.