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Theory for the number of genes affecting quantitative characters

I. Estimation of and variance of the estimation of gene number for quantitative traits controlled by additive genes having equal effect

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Summary

A general expression for gene number estimation which encompasses the conventional formula was derived. It provides a basis for gene number estimation from the data of recurrent selection experiments that are not of sufficient duration to measure total response to selection.

Gene number estimates are considerably more reliable when heritability is high. The effect of heritability on sampling variance is particularly important when gene number is large.

Generally the most effective ways of decreasing the variance of a gene number estimate will be 1) to increase the number of generations in a primary selection program, 2) to increase the number of generations in the two way selection program and 3) to increase population size.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Statistics, Florida State Univeristy, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

    Y. C. Park

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  1. Y. C. Park
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Communicated by R.W. Allard

From a thesis submitted by the author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree. Received March, 1975. Work supported by Public Health Service Grant GM 16074, by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station and by National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences Grant No. 5T32 ES07011-02.

Former Research Assistant, Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Minnesota; Currently Post-doctoral Fellow in Environmental Health Measurement and Statistics.

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Park, Y.C. Theory for the number of genes affecting quantitative characters. Theoret. Appl. Genetics 50, 153–161 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00277736

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00277736

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