A genetically diverse population (Population 1) of monkeyflowers is growing on an alpine slope. The seeds produced by 100 of these plants are counted and the mean and variance are calculated. The variance is 25. One plant is selected and cuttings are taken from it. These cuttings are cultivated in the greenhouse, producing many genetically identical clones of the same plant. These clones (Population 2) are then transplanted into the alpine population, allowed to grow for a year, and then the numbers of seeds produced by each of the cloned plants is counted. The variance in seed number among these cloned plants is 10. Assume that the alpine slope environment does not vary across the years of the experiment, and that there is no genotype-by-environmental variation for seed number. What is the broad-sense heritability for seed number for Population 1?
Genetic Variation
Genetic variation refers to the variation in the genome sequences between individual organisms of a species. Individual differences or population differences can both be referred to as genetic variations. It is primarily caused by mutation, but other factors such as genetic drift and sexual reproduction also play a major role.
Quantitative Genetics
Quantitative genetics is the part of genetics that deals with the continuous trait, where the expression of various genes influences the phenotypes. Thus genes are expressed together to produce a trait with continuous variability. This is unlike the classical traits or qualitative traits, where each trait is controlled by the expression of a single or very few genes to produce a discontinuous variation.
A genetically diverse population (Population 1) of monkeyflowers is growing on an alpine slope. The seeds produced by 100 of these plants are counted and the mean and variance are calculated. The variance is 25. One plant is selected and cuttings are taken from it. These cuttings are cultivated in the greenhouse, producing many genetically identical clones of the same plant. These clones (Population 2) are then transplanted into the alpine population, allowed to grow for a year, and then the numbers of seeds produced by each of the cloned plants is counted. The variance in seed number among these cloned plants is 10. Assume that the alpine slope environment does not vary across the years of the experiment, and that there is no genotype-by-environmental variation for seed number.
What is the broad-sense heritability for seed number for Population 1?
Trending now
This is a popular solution!
Step by step
Solved in 2 steps
