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Genotype-environment interactions and the maintenance of polygenic variation.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  17246488     Owner:  NLM     Status:  PubMed-not-MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Genotype-environment interactions may be a potent force maintaining genetic variation in quantitative traits in natural populations. This is shown by a simple model of additive polygenic inheritance in which the additive contributions of alleles vary with the environment. Under simplifying symmetry assumptions, the model implies that the variance of the phenotypes produced across environments by a multilocus genotype decreases as the number of heterozygous loci increases. In the region of an optimal phenotype, the mapping from the quantitative trait into fitness is concave, and the mean fitness of a genotype will increase with the number of heterozygous loci. This leads to balancing selection, polymorphism, and potentially high levels of additive genetic variance, even though all allelic effects remain additive within each specific environment. An important implication of the model is that the variation maintained by genotype-environment interactions is difficult to study with the restricted range of environments represented in typical experiments. In particular, if fluctuations in allelic effects are pervasive, as suggested by the extensive literature on genotype-environment interactions, efforts to estimate genetic parameters in a single environment may be of limited value.
Authors:
J H Gillespie; M Turelli
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Genetics     Volume:  121     ISSN:  0016-6731     ISO Abbreviation:  Genetics     Publication Date:  1989 Jan 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2010-06-28     Completed Date:  2010-06-28     Revised Date:  2010-09-14    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  0374636     Medline TA:  Genetics     Country:  United States    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  129-38     Citation Subset:  -    
Affiliation:
Department of Genetics, University of California, Davis, California 95616.
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