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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 56(9)

The struggle to exploit non-additive variation

Bruce Walsh
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- Author Affiliations

Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Animal Science, Plant Science, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. Email: jbwalsh@u.arizona.edu

Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 56(9) 873-881 https://doi.org/10.1071/AR05152
Submitted: 9 May 2005  Accepted: 20 June 2005   Published: 28 September 2005

Abstract

Whereas animal breeders largely focus on improvement using additive genetic variance, inbreeding and asexual reproduction allow plant breeders to at least partially exploit non-additive genetic variance as well. We briefly review various approaches used by breeders to exploit dominance and epistatic variance, discuss their constraints and limitations, and examine what (if anything) can be done to improve our ability to further use often untapped genetic variation.

Additional keywords: dominance, epistasis, epistatic genetic variance, inbreeding.


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