0 a scale (= set of numbers, levels, etc.) on which things can be arranged in order according to a particular feature or quality:
Overall, the clines tended to be wider the further they were from the race centre.
Stochastic simulations are necessary for a full understanding of clines in polygenic traits.
A step cline in a trait determined by an infinite number of unlinked loci.
However, this is compensated by the narrowing of the clines, which reduces the width of the region over which neutral allele frequencies are steepened.
However, adjacent clines would tend to annihilate each other, and some mechanism is needed to generate cryptic divergence.
Moreover, the neutral clines may be curved away from the barrier.
Genetic drift in clines which are maintained by migration and natural selection.
Clearly, sampling only a subset of the characters may have failed to reveal the occurrence of non-coincident clines.