WILL POPULATION BOTTLENECKS AND MULTILOCUS EPISTASIS INCREASE ADDITIVE GENETIC VARIANCE?

Population bottlenecks increase additive genetic variance but do not break a selection limit in rain forest Drosophila.

According to neutral quantitative genetic theory, population bottlenecks are expected to decrease standing levels of additive genetic variance of quantitative traits. However, some empirical and theoretical results suggest that, if nonadditive genetic effects influence the trait, bottlenecks may actually increase additive genetic variance. This has been an important issue in conservation geneti...

Additive Genetic Variance

Epistasis Is a Major Determinant of the Additive Genetic Variance in Mimulus guttatus

The influence of genetic interactions (epistasis) on the genetic variance of quantitative traits is a major unresolved problem relevant to medical, agricultural, and evolutionary genetics. The additive genetic component is typically a high proportion of the total genetic variance in quantitative traits, despite that underlying genes must interact to determine phenotype. This study estimates dir...

On the relationship between epistasis and genetic variance heterogeneity.

Epistasis and genetic variance heterogeneity are two non-additive genetic inheritance patterns that are often, but not always, related. Here we use theoretical examples and empirical results from earlier analyses of experimental data to illustrate the connection between the two. This includes an introduction to the relationship between epistatic gene action, statistical epistasis, and genetic v...

Epistasis and its contribution to genetic variance components.

We present a new parameterization of physiological epistasis that allows the measurement of epistasis separate from its effects on the interaction (epistatic) genetic variance component. Epistasis is the deviation of two-locus genotypic values from the sum of the contributing single-locus genotypic values. This parameterization leads to statistical tests for epistasis given estimates of two-loc...