Population & Quantitative Genetics


Upon the completion of the course the students should have comprehend:

  • Μain principles of Population and Quantitative Genetics
  • The evolutionary process in plant and animal populations, the implications on genetic polymorphism and the inheritance of the quantitative traits.

COURSE CONTENT

The course involves basic principles of Population and Quantitative Genetics, as a link with the applied sciences of Plant and Animal Breeding. More specifically,

Population Genetics: Populations, genetic diversity and differentiation, frequencies of genotypes and alleles, equilibrium population, Hardy Weinberg law, evolution and evolutionary forces, selection, fitness values, mutation, migration and gene flow, inbreeding and inbreeding index, mating systems, populations with finite size, genetic drift, founder effect and genetic bottleneck, structures populations, genetic polymorphism.

Quantitative Genetics: Nature of continuous traits, multi-loci gene inheritance, environmental impact on phenotypic expression of quantitative traits, statistical tools to study quantitative traits, coefficient of heritability and response to selection, genetic correlation between quantitative traits, association of quantitative traits with QTLs.