COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

Section 17.1

Question 1

1.How does a quantitative characteristic differ from a discontinuous characteristic?

Question 2

2.Briefly explain why the relation between genotype and phenotype is frequently complex for quantitative characteristics.

Question 3

3.Why do polygenic characteristics have many phenotypes?

Section 17.2

Question 4

4.What information do the mean and variance provide about a distribution?

Section 17.3

Question 5

5.List all the components that contribute to the phenotypic variance and define each component.

Question 6

6.How do the broad-sense and narrow-sense heritabilities differ?

Question 7

7.Briefly describe common misunderstandings or misapplications of the concept of heritability.

Question 8

8.Briefly explain how genes affecting a polygenic characteristic are located with the use of QTL mapping.

Section 17.4

Question 9

9.How is the response to selection related to narrow-sense heritability and the selection differential? What information does the response to selection provide?

Question 10

10.Why does the response to selection often level off after many generations of selection?

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