QUANTITATIVE GENETICS AND POPULATION DYNAMICS

Population and quantitative genetics of regulatory networks.

I evolved boolean regulatory networks in a computer simulation. I varied mutation, recombination, the size of the network, and the number of connections per node. I measured the performance of networks and the heritability and epistasis of genetic effects. Networks of intermediate connectivity performed best. The distinction between metabolic and quantitative genetic additivity explained some o...

Lecture 1 Introduction to Population and Quantitative Genetics

As background for the rest of the lectures in this course, our goal is to introduce some basic concepts from Mendelian genetics (the rules of gene transmission), population genetics (the rules of how genes behave in population), and quantitative genetics (the rules of transmission of complex traits, those with both a genetic and environmental basis). We start with what (at first) may seem somew...

Lecture 1 Basic Concepts in Mendelian, Population and Quantitative Genetics

The two most influential biologists in history, Darwin and Mendel, were contemporaries and yet the initial acceptance of their ideas suffered very different fates. Darwin was concerned with the evolution of complex traits (and hence concepts from population and quantitative genetics), while Mendel was concerned with the transmission of traits that had a simple genetic basis (often a single gene...

Quantitative Genetics and Quantitative Traits

Introduction In the chapter on Mendel and Morgan, we saw how the transmission of genes from one generation to another follows precise mathematical formula. The traits discussed in that chapter, however, were discrete traits—peas are either yellow or green, someone either has a disorder or does not have the disorder. But many behavioral traits are not like these clear-cut, have-it-or-don’t-have-...

The time of populations: Viability and Dynamics in History, Population Economics, Population Biology, and Population Genetics