Evolution and Selection of Quantitative Traits

Jarrod Hadfield, Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, The Quarterly Review of Biology ...the authors have done an admirable job at integrating the newest results to provide an unusually current and comprehensive guide. It is hard to imagine that anyone publishing in this area could make the case that they have added to what is known without consulting this wonderful book.

Patrick C. Phillips, University of Oregon, USA Decades in the making, the somewhat audacious conceit of collecting everything that we know about evolutionary genetics into a single tome pays dividends in the form a book that will serve as a central resource in the library of every evolutionary biologist.

Warren J. Ewens, University of Pennsylvania, USA This book has the same outstanding merits as the previous volume. It is authoritative, comprehensive (covering an extremely wide range of topics) and beautifully written. It will remain as the definitive account of the material that it considers for many years to come.

William G. Hill, University of Edinburgh, UK Their 1998 book has been an essential and popular teaching and reference text for quantitative geneticists for 20 years. At last the long promised and awaited second volume is available, structured to provide both an introduction for the graduate student and a reference volume for the seasoned professional. The authors display both an impressive breadth and depth of knowledge and ability to explain it.

Sarah P. Otto, University of British Columbia, Canada The book is a fabulous resource; it will be the go-to place to learn about a broad variety of topics in population and quantitative genetics, from measuring differences among populations to estimating selection from genomic sequence data. A real strength of the book is the expert overview of the topics alongside pointers to the key papers for more details.

Nicholas H. Barton, Institute of Science and Technology, Austria This long-awaited volume gives an exceptionally comprehensive and thoughtful overview of the field, and will be invaluable to all those who are trying to understand the genetics of complex traits. As well as covering quantitative genetics, it gives a thorough treatment of the most recent methods for making inferences from DNA sequence data.

Peter M. Visscher, University of Queensland, Australia This book is a virtuoso synthesis of the theory and application of selection and evolution of complex traits. Much more than an advanced textbook, it is the most comprehensive treatment and synthesis of the theory and analysis of selection and evolution of quantitative traits to date.

Stevan J. Arnold, Oregon State University, USA A masterful synthesis of the growing points in selection analysis.

Bruce Walsh is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. He has taught advanced classes on quantitative genetics in 25 different countries and his research interests are at the interface of biology, genetics, mathematical modelling, and statistics. He is also an avid lepidopterist, having described over two dozen species of new moths and has three species named after him. Michael Lynch is Professor in the Schoool of Life Sciences at Arizona State University and is Center Director of the Biodesign Center for Mechanims of Evolution. His research is focused on mechanisms of evolution at the gene, genomic, cellular, and phenotypic levels, with special attention being given to the roles of mutation, random genetic drift, and recombination. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Preface I Introduction 1: Changes in quantitative traits over time II Evolution at one and two loci 2: Neutral evolution in one- and two-locus systems 3: The genetic effective size of a population 4: The nonadaptive forces of evolution 5: The population genetics of selection 6: Theorems of natural selection: Results of Price, Fisher, and Robertson 7: Interaction of selection, mutation, and drift 8: Hitchhiking and selective sweeps 9: Using molecular data to detect selection: Signatures from recent single events 10: Using molecular data to detect selection: Signatures from multiple historical events III Drift and quantitative traits 11: Changes in genetic variance induced by drift 12: The neutral divergence of quantitative traits IV Short-term response on a single character 13: Short-term changes in the mean: 1. The breeder's equation 14: Short-term changes in the mean: 2. Truncation and threshold selection 15: Short-term changes in the mean: 3. Permanent versus transient response 16: Short-term changes in the variance: 1. Changes in the additive variance 17: Short-term changes in the variance: 2. Changes in environmental variance 18: Analysis of short-term selection experiments: 1. Least-squares approaches 19: Analysis of short-term selection experiments: 2. Mixed-model and bayesian approaches 20: Selection response in natural populations V Selection in structured populations 21: Family-based selection 22: Associative effects: Competition, social interactions, group and kin selection 23: Selection under inbreeding VI Population-genetic models of trait response 24: The infinitesimal model and its extensions 25: Long-term response: 1. Deterministic aspects 26: Long-term response: 2. Finite population size and mutation 27: Long-term response: 3. Adaptive walks 28: Maintenance of quantitative genetic variation VII Measuring selection on traits 29: Individual fitness and the measurement of univariate selecton 30: Measuring multivariate selection VIII Appendices A1: Diffusion theory A2: Introduction to Bayesian Analysis A3: Markov Chain Monte Carlo and Gibbs sampling A4: Multiple comparisons: Bonferroni corrections, false-discovery rates, and meta-analysis A5: The geometry of vectors and matrices: Eigenvalues and eigenvectors A6: Derivatives of vectors and vector-valued functions Literature Cited Author Index Organism and Trait Index Subject Index