Complex sentence: In evolutionary biology, the variational properties of an organism, as distinct from its functional properties, are those properties relating principally to the production of variation among its offspring, but in a broader sense can include phenotypic plasticity.
Split into simpler sentences: In evolutionary biology, the variational properties of an organism are properties that produce variation among its offspring. Variational properties contrast with functional properties, and in a broader sense can include phenotypic plasticity.