Estimating Realized Heritability in Panmictic Populations

Estimating Realized Random Effects in Mixed Models with Finite Populations

Parallel Genetic Algorithms with Distributed Panmictic Populations

Genetic algorithms (GAs) are commonly parallelized using multiple communicating populations or by keeping one population and dividing the task of evaluating the tness among several processors. This paper examines an algorithm where the population is physically distributed, but behaves like a single panmictic unit. This is a desirable property because much more is known about single-population G...

Realized heritability of personalities in the great tit (Parus major).

Behaviour under conditions of mild stress shows consistent patterns in all vertebrates: exploratory behaviour, boldness, aggressiveness covary in the same way. The existence of highly consistent individual variation in these behavioural strategies, also referred to as personalities or coping styles, allows us to measure the behaviour under standardized conditions on birds bred in captivity, lin...

Estimating Realized Random Effects in Mixed Models

A common analysis objective is estimation of a realized random effect. The parameter underlying such an effect is usually defined as an average response of a realized unit, such as a cluster mean, domain mean, small area mean, or subject effect. The effects are called random effects since their occurrence is the result of some (actual or assumed) random sampling process. In mixed models, random...

Estimating Trait Heritability in Highly Fecund Species

Increasingly, researchers are interested in estimating the heritability of traits for nonmodel organisms. However, estimating the heritability of these traits presents both experimental and statistical challenges, which typically arise from logistical difficulties associated with rearing large numbers of families independently in the field, a lack of known pedigree, the need to account for grou...