Leamy L
Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Charlotte 28223, USA.
J Hered. 1997 Mar-Apr;88(2):85-92. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.jhered.a023082.
Fluctuating asymmetry (FA)--nondirectional variation between left and right sides of bilateral characters--has become increasingly used as a measure of developmental stability. In the comparison of stability levels among various populations, however, it often has been assumed that FA does not have a genetic basis (i.e., its heritability is zero). To test this hypothesis, heritabilities were estimated via maximum likelihood correlations of parents and offspring for FA in eight quasi-continuous skeletal characters (primarily presence/absence of various foramina) in randombred house mice. Genetic correlations between left and right sides for each of the characters also were calculated to test whether they were one, as would be predicted if differences between sides are purely environmental in origin. Heritabilities of FA in all eight characters were not significantly different from zero, as hypothesized, their mean value being very low (0.032). Similarly, genetic correlations between sides were not significantly different from one for most of the characters. It was concluded that for this specific population of mice, there was no detectable additive genetic variance for FA.
波动不对称性（FA）——双侧性状左右两侧的非定向变异——已越来越多地被用作发育稳定性的一种度量。然而，在比较不同种群的稳定性水平时，人们常常假定FA没有遗传基础（即其遗传力为零）。为了检验这一假设，通过对随机繁殖的家鼠的八个准连续骨骼性状（主要是各种孔的有无）的FA进行亲子代最大似然相关性分析，估计了遗传力。还计算了每个性状左右两侧之间的遗传相关性，以检验它们是否为1，这是如果两侧差异纯粹源于环境时所预测的情况。如假设的那样，所有八个性状的FA遗传力与零无显著差异，其平均值非常低（0.032）。同样，大多数性状两侧之间的遗传相关性与1无显著差异。得出的结论是，对于这一特定种群的小鼠，FA不存在可检测到的加性遗传方差。
