cline
1
8.2
- noun
- /klaɪn/
- Specialized
:
cline
- There is a cline in the timing of pupping, occurring earlier in the south and later in the north.
Examples
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Indeed, what we see for such traits are clines; that is, gradual variations as we move across space, environments, and time.
Academic text (2006) -
Our analysis reveals no geographical trends in diversity, in contradiction to expectations under the Neolithic hypothesis, and suggests an alternative explanation for the apparent cline in diversity recently described.
Blog text (11) -
Again, the fact that southeast Europeans do cluster with Europeans overall, although at one end of the cline, renders this claim unlikely.
Blog text (18) -
As with the environments, each one of our physical traits exists along a cline, that is, gradual transitions across humankind from one observable characteristic to another.
Academic text (2006) -
When a transgene has been present in a wild population for several generations and introgression has been detected, a cline in transgene (and other marker gene) frequencies may become established between the agricultural and the wild population.
Academic text (2008) -
Within species, across clines or subspecies, this raises very significant (and addressable) questions regarding adaptation in the genetic vs. the ontogenetic realms.
Blog text (9) -
The more analysts are involved in such a project, the subtler the distinctions between well-identifiable and less-identifiable cases might become, because a range of metaphor identification scores may suggest a cline of metaphor identifiability.
Academic text (2002) -
What guys like the Kennewick plaintiffs and others are actually doing with craniometrics is measuring the clines and using statistical clusters or variations from the clusters to classify.
Academic text (2006) -
Researchers observed a cline in the size of the fish, with larger specimens found in deeper waters.
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The study highlighted a cline of genetic traits among the populations, showing variation from one region to another.
How Gradual
Surface Forms
Etymology
Cline comes from an old Greek root klin- meaning 'to lean' or 'slope', and you can see the same root in incline. So a cline is like a 'slope' in nature, a slow, gradual change in a trait across a place.