monomorphic
/ˌmɒnə(ʊ)ˈmɔːfɪk
/adjective chiefly Biology
1Having or existing in only one form, in particular:The aromatic group had a high proportion of monomorphic loci suggestive of a severe or recent bottleneck....
- Loci are commonly chosen because they were known to be polymorphic in the population studied, while monomorphic loci were not genotyped or discarded from analysis.
- Three of the loci were monomorphic in all populations.
1.1(Of a species or population) showing little or no variation in morphology or phenotype.The lesion was a lobulated circumscribed tumor mass composed microscopically of a monomorphic population of ductal cells....
- Nevertheless, frequencies of monomorphic populations were homogeneous over zoogeographical regions.
- There were also large differences between populations in diversity, some of the populations being monomorphic and some polymorphic.
1.2(Of an animal species) having sexes that are similar in size and appearance.Siberian jays are sexually monomorphic with a substantial overlap in size between sexes....
- Unlike many socially polygynous species, house wrens are sexually monomorphic; both sexes are a fairly uniform brownish gray.
- Many bird species are morphologically monomorphic for external characters that would differentiate the sexes; sex identification in populations is often problematic.
Derivatives
monomorphism
/ noun ...- The increase in tail length in M. leucopterus is shown to a greater extent in the males, resulting in sexual monomorphism.
- Consistent with these predictions, monogamy is correlated with sexual monomorphism and polygamy is correlated with sexual dimorphism.
- The temperate japonica and aromatic populations also had the highest incidence of monomorphism, with 15 and 21 monomorphic loci, respectively.
monomorphous
- The biopsies from the gastric lesion showed a marked expansion of the lamina propria due to an infiltration of monomorphous cells with eosinophilic cytoplasm and eccentric nuclei.
- Cytologie preparations contained a predominantly monomorphous population of tumor cells with moderate eosinophilic cytoplasm with fine, elongated cytoplasmic processes.
- These lesions were characterized by a monomorphous pattern of slender, elongated spindle cells in a sclerotic stroma.
Origin
Late 19th century: from mono- 'single' + Greek morphē 'form'.