Main description:

The intended audience of this textbook are plant and animal breeders, upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in biological and agricultural science majors. Statisticians who are interested in understanding how statistical methods are applied to genetics and agriculture can benefit substantially by reading this book. One characteristic of this textbook is represented by three chapters of technical reviews for Mendelian genetics, population genetics and preliminary statistics, which are prerequisites for studying quantitative genetics. Numerous examples are provided to illustrate different methods of data analysis and estimation of genetic parameters. Along with each example of data analyses is the program code of SAS (statistical analysis system).

Contents:

Preface
Introduction
Chapters 1-4:Introduce quantitative genetics and provide review material for Mendelian genetics, population genetics, and statistics
Chapters 5-8:Define genetic effects and genetic variances and introduce statistical tools to estimate the effects and variances
Chapters 9-12:Introduce genetic relatedness between relatives and describe how to use the genetic relatedness to estimate heritability of a quantitative trait
Chapters 13-17:Introduce the concept of artificial selection and describe various ways to perform artificial selection for maximum genetic gain
Chapters 18-20:Introduce advanced quantitative genetics that incorporates molecular data, i.e., genetic mapping for quantitative trait loci

Appendix of Tables and MethodsGlossaryDefinitionsReferences for Further Reading
Index