 An important distinction between inheritance channels and inheritance systems should be made before classifying inheritance systems. This distinction plays a central role in controversies over classifying and delimiting inheritance systems. Simply put, inheritance channels refer to “routes across generations” (in the words of Sterelny et al. (Sterelny et al. 1996: 390)) through which hereditary resources or information pass from parent to offspring. The notion of inheritance system, in contrast, as used by Jablonka and Lamb in particular, is meant to classify inheritance factors, mechanisms, and processes, and the ways in which they store and carry hereditary information (Jablonka 2001; Jablonka &amp; Lamb 2005).