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No evidence for the positive relationship between genetic correlations and heritabilities

Szymon M. Drobniak, Mariusz Cichoń
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/039388
Szymon M. Drobniak
1 Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Poland
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  • For correspondence: szymek.drobniak@uj.edu.pl
Mariusz Cichoń
1 Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Poland
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Abstract

Quantitative genetics predicts, that traits subjected to strong selection should show low heritability and may yield biased estimates of genetic correlations (rg). Similar pattern may also appear if genetic sources of variation are confounded with non-genetic sources. Thus, a positive relationship between genetic correlations and heritabilities (h2) of underlying traits might be observed. Here we test this prediction using a large dataset of published estimates of genetic correlations and employing a powerful meta-analytical approach. We considered both between-traits and cross-sex genetic correlations. We failed to find support for the prediction about a positive rg – h2 relationship: our analysis based on nearly 1000 published estimates of genetic parameters indicates that the predicted relationship is weak and statistically non-significant. Thus, low heritability does not preclude the possibility of detecting substantial genetic correlations. Our meta-analysis indicates that published estimates of genetic parameters coming from various experimental designs and obtained using different statistical techniques are not significantly biased in case of weakly-heritable traits.

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Posted February 10, 2016.
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No evidence for the positive relationship between genetic correlations and heritabilities
Szymon M. Drobniak, Mariusz Cichoń
bioRxiv 039388; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/039388
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No evidence for the positive relationship between genetic correlations and heritabilities
Szymon M. Drobniak, Mariusz Cichoń
bioRxiv 039388; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/039388

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