The propensity to capture and mobilize gene fragments by the highly abundant Helitron family of transposable elements likely impacts the evolution of genes in Zea mays. These elements provide a substrate for natural selection by giving birth to chimeric transcripts by intertwining exons of disparate genes. They also capture flanking exons by read-through transcription. Here, we describe the exp...

The objective of this project was to examine the diversity of breast meat composition and quality traits among unique resource populations. Birds from 5 groups (inbred Leghorn, inbred Fayoumi, commercial broilers, F5 broiler-inbred Leghorn cross, and F5 broiler-inbred Fayoumi cross) were utilized. Contemporary stocks (broilers, inbreds, and crosses) were grown in a single house but in separate ...

A number of separate strains of Drosophila pseudoobscura were inbred for 38 generations of brother-sister mating with forced heterozygosity for two alleles of either the octanol dehydrogenase or esterase-5 locus. Crosses were set up within each of these inbred lines such that simple mendelian ratios were expected, and eggs from these crosses were placed on media with additions simple chemicals ...

If genetic variation for fitness traits in natural populations ("standing" variation) is maintained by recurrent mutation, then quantitative-genetic properties of standing variation should resemble those of newly arisen mutations. One well-known property of standing variation for fitness traits is inbreeding depression, with its converse of heterosis or hybrid vigor. We measured heterosis for t...

Six inbred lines of Zea mays expressing different soluble (cytosolic) malate dehydrogenase (sMDH) zymogram phenotypes were analyzed genetically. sMDH was found to be coded for by unlinked duplicated loci in four of these inbred lines. The remaining two lines were found not to possess these duplicated loci. Furthermore, the duplicated loci, sMdh1 and sMdh2, have been found to be located on diffe...

Selection intensity and generation interval were evaluated in a Hereford cattle herd made up of 14 inbred lines and 14 linecross groups corresponding to the lines of inbred sires at the Suan Juan Basin Research Center, Hesperus, Colorado. Selection indexes practiced were calculated in retrospect. Analyses of the records collected from 1946 through 1973 involved weaning weight (WW) and postweani...