Abstract
An experiment was conducted to investigate the offspring-parent regression for three quantitative traits (weight, abdominal bristles and wing length) in Drosophila melanogaster. Linear and polynomial models were fitted for the regressions of a character in offspring on both parents. It is demonstrated that responses by the characters to selection predicted by the nonlinear regressions may differ substantially from those predicted by the linear regressions. This is true even, and especially, if selection is weak. The realized heritability for a character under selection is shown to be determined not only by the offspring-parent regression but also by the distribution of the character and by the form and strength of selection.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (907.4 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Coyne J. A., Beecham E. Heritability of two morphological characters within and among natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics. 1987 Dec;117(4):727–737. doi: 10.1093/genetics/117.4.727. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Gimelfarb A. Offspring-parent genotypic regression: how linear is it? Biometrics. 1986 Mar;42(1):67–71. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- KELLER E. C., Jr, MITCHELL D. F. Interchromosomal genotypic interactions. I. An analysis of morphological characters. Genetics. 1962 Nov;47:1557–1571. doi: 10.1093/genetics/47.11.1557. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kearsey M. J., Kojima K. I. The genetic architecture of body weight and egg hatchability in Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics. 1967 May;56(1):23–37. doi: 10.1093/genetics/56.1.23. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]