Genetics Dissection of Complex Traits in the Genomic Era

There is a renewed interest for Quantitative genetics since the genomic revolution. Quantitative or complex traits are those controlled by multiple genes so that the inheritance of such complex traits is non-Mendelian, although each individual gene shows Mendelian inheritance. With the advent of genomic tools, for example Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and deep NGS sequencing of RNA transcript (reviewed in the chapter of Ana Perez de Castro et al. with a specially focus on plants) scientists have access to information that was unimaginable some decades ago. However, it is essential to recognize that the objectives of geneticists remain the same, although the technology allows the answer to questions that some years ago were unthinkable. With the myriad of statistical methods, experimental designs and phenotypic and molecular data that are now available a lucid and comprehensive vision of the objectives, findings and challenges facing nowadays by geneticists is more needed than ever.