AGB 121: Principles of Animal Genetics and Population Genetics (2+1)

QUANTITATIVE TRAITS

• Continuously varying characters are called quantitative characters or metric characters (Example: economically important traits such as height, weight, milk yield, wool yield, egg production etc.) and variation in them is called quantitative variation or continuous variations.

Quantitative genetics is the study of continuous traits and their underlying mechanisms.

• Quantitative traits are controlled by multiple genes, each segregating according to Mendel's laws.
• The inheritance of quantitative traits or poly genes is called Quantitative inheritance, Multiple factor inheritance, Multiple gene inheritance or Polygenic inheritance.