The effect of continued selection of phenotypic intermediates on gene frequency

Abstract

The selection of animals or plants for high values of a certain character may favour not only genotypes associated with these high values but also genotypes associated with high variability. Any differences between genotypes in variability may therefore be of considerable importance in plant and livestock improvement programmes as well as in evolution. The effects of various selection procedures on variability have been studied in three recent experiments [Falconer & Robertson (1956) Falconer (1957) and Prout (1962)]. In these experiments one line was continued by selecting, in each generation, parents with values of a particular character near the population mean. Manning (1955, 1956) has described the effects of this kind of selection applied to cotton. Robertson (1956) derived and discussed the theory of such selection procedures when certain simplifying approximations can be made We shall obtain some more general results and show that Robertson was incorrect in saying that the selection procedure would lead to gene fixation even if the heterozygotes are less variable than the homozygotes. The importance of the results is discussed in section 8.