Genetics, Vol 122, 915-922, Copyright © 1989

INVESTIGATIONS

Genetic Correlations and Maternal Effect Coefficients Obtained From Offspring-Parent Regression

R. Lande and T. Price
Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637

Additive genetic variances and covariances of quantitative characters are necessary to predict the evolutionary response of the mean phenotype vector in a population to natural or artificial selection. Standard formulas for estimating these parameters, from the resemblance between relatives in one or two characters at a time, are biased by natural selection on the parents and by maternal effects. We show how these biases can be removed using a multivariate analysis of offspring-parent regressions. A dynamic model of maternal effects demonstrates that, in addition to the phenotypic variance-covariance matrix of the characters, sufficient parameters for predicting the response of the mean phenotype vector to weak selection are the additive genetic variance-covariance matrix and a set of causal coefficients for maternal effects. These can be simultaneously estimated from offspring-parent regressions alone, in some cases just from the daughter-mother regressions, if all of the important selected and maternal characters have been measured and included in the analysis.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. Gavrilets One-Locus Two-Allele Models With Maternal (Parental) Selection Genetics, June 1, 1998; 149(2): 1147 - 1152. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]