dominance

/dom"euh neuhns/, n.

1. rule; control; authority; ascendancy.

2. the condition of being dominant.

3. Psychol. the disposition of an individual to assert control in dealing with others.

4. Animal Behav. high status in a social group, usually acquired as the result of aggression, that involves the tendency to take priority in access to limited resources, as food, mates, or space.

5. Neurol. the normal tendency for one side of the brain to be more important than the other in controlling certain functions, as speech and language.

Also, dominancy.

[1810-20; DOMIN(ANT) + -ANCE]

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In genetics, the greater influence by one of a pair of genes (alleles) that affect the same inherited trait.

If an individual pea plant that has one allele for tallness and one for shortness is the same height as an individual that has two alleles for tallness, the tallness allele is said to be completely dominant. If such an individual is shorter than an individual that has two tallness alleles but still taller than one that has two shortness alleles, the tallness allele is said to be partially or incompletely dominant and the shortness allele is said to be recessive (see recessiveness).

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▪ genetics

      in genetics, greater influence by one of a pair of genes (alleles) that affect the same inherited character. If an individual pea plant with the alleles T and t (T = tallness, t = shortness) is the same height as a TT individual, the T allele (and the trait of tallness) is said to be completely dominant; if the Tt individual is shorter than the TT but still taller than the tt individual, T is said to be partially or incompletely dominant; i.e., it has a greater influence than t but does not completely mask the presence of t, which is said to be recessive.

      In ecology, the term dominance is used to describe a species of animal or plant that exerts the most influence on the other species of its community because its members are the most abundant or the largest. In animal behaviour, a ruling animal in a social grouping is described as dominant. See also recessiveness.

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