1A continuum with an infinite number of gradations from one extreme to the other.
‘a point along a cline of activity’
‘In sober fact, just for those moments, the cline between two weathers must I suppose have been only a couple of hundred yards wide and it just happened to coincide with the track.’
‘Is there evidence of broad or narrow clines in vocal characters?’
1.1Biology A gradation in one or more characteristics within a species or other taxon, especially between different populations.
‘There are numerous examples of population differentiation in body size and development time along latitudinal and elevational clines.’
‘Even within a subspecies, vocalizations vary between sample points in a manner consistent with points along a cline.’
‘In that study, the deflexus characters were reported to change to inflexus, and to coincide with a reduction in flower size along the geographical cline.’
‘Both genetic and morphological clines along the Virginia transect were steeper than along the West Virginia transect.’
‘Here, when there is cooperativity and the repressive activities of u and v are balanced the null clines, being sigmoids, intersect three times.’
Origin
1930s from Greek klinein ‘to slope’.
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