What is commonly associated with traits that are affected by multiple genes?

Traits that are affected by multiple genes are referred to as polygenic characters. This concept describes how certain characteristics, such as height, skin color, and eye color, result from the cumulative effects of multiple genes, each contributing to a range of phenotypic outcomes. Polygenic inheritance leads to continuous variation in these traits rather than distinct categories, illustrating the complexity of genetic influences on phenotype.

Incomplete dominance, linkage, and codominance describe different genetic interactions. Incomplete dominance is a situation where a heterozygous phenotype is an intermediate blend of the two homozygous phenotypes. Linkage refers to the tendency of genes located close to each other on a chromosome to be inherited together, while codominance occurs when both alleles in a heterozygote are fully expressed, resulting in a phenotype that shows both traits distinctly. These concepts highlight specific inheritance patterns but do not encompass the broader idea of multiple genes influencing a single trait, which is the hallmark of polygenic characters.