Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2010 Aug 27;365(1552):2431-8. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0108.
Recent advances in the quantitative genetics of traits in wild animal populations have created new interest in whether natural selection, and genetic response to it, can be detected within long-term ecological studies. However, such studies have re-emphasized the fact that ecological heterogeneity can confound our ability to infer selection on genetic variation and detect a population's response to selection by conventional quantitative genetics approaches. Here, I highlight three manifestations of this issue: counter gradient variation, environmentally induced covariance between traits and the correlated effects of a fluctuating environment. These effects are symptomatic of the oversimplifications and strong assumptions of the breeder's equation when it is applied to natural populations. In addition, methods to assay genetic change in quantitative traits have overestimated the precision with which change can be measured. In the future, a more conservative approach to inferring quantitative genetic response to selection, or genomic approaches allowing the estimation of selection intensity and responses to selection at known quantitative trait loci, will provide a more precise view of evolution in ecological time.
近年来，野生动物种群性状的数量遗传学研究取得了新的进展，人们开始关注在长期生态研究中是否可以检测到自然选择以及遗传对其的响应。然而，此类研究再次强调了一个事实，即生态异质性可能会混淆我们推断遗传变异选择和通过传统的数量遗传学方法检测种群对选择的响应的能力。在这里，我强调了这个问题的三个表现形式：反梯度变异、性状之间环境诱导的协方差以及波动环境的相关影响。这些影响是在将繁殖者方程应用于自然种群时过度简化和强烈假设的症状。此外，用于检测数量性状中遗传变化的方法高估了可以测量变化的精度。将来，对推断对选择的数量遗传响应的更保守方法，或允许在已知数量性状位点估计选择强度和对选择响应的基因组方法，将为在生态时间内进化提供更精确的视图。
