What exactly are genomes, genotypes and phenotypes? And what about phenomes?

The fundamental concepts of genome, genotype and phenotype are not defined in a satisfactory manner within the biological literature. Not only are there inconsistencies in usage between various authors, but even individual authors do not use these concepts in a consistent manner within their own writings. We have found at least five different notions of genome, seven of genotype, and five of phenotype current in the literature. Our goal is to clarify this situation by (a) defining clearly and precisely the notions of genetic complement, genome, genotype, phenetic complement, and phenotype; (b) examining that of phenome; and (c) analysing the logical structure of this family of concepts. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.