Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics

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Traits that we have studied so far fall into a few easily distinguishable classes that we use to foretell the genotypes of the individuals (McClean, 1997).
Mendel toiled with traits that were all discrete, example of such traits were yellow or green, round or wrinkled, etc. A phenotype can be predicted from the known genotype and various alleles give distinctly discernible phenotypes (McClean, 1997). These types of phenotypes are known as discontinuous traits. However, many traits don’t fall into discrete categories since a continuous distribution of phenotypes is found. The distribution is similar to the bell-shaped curve for a normal distribution. These types of phenotypes are known as continuous traits and are studied differently compared to discontinuous traits. Examples of these traits are learning ability in humans, weight gain in animals or ear length in corn. These traits are regulated by multiple genes, each separating according to Mendel's laws and can also be influenced by the environment to varying levels (McClean, 1997).
Since continuous traits are frequently calculated and given a quantitative value, they are commonly referred to as quantitative traits. Thus, quantitative genetics is known as the area of study of inheritance of consistently calculated traits and their mechanisms (McClean, 1997).
Today, famine is rare because the management of quantitative traits has brought about a major increase in crop yield in the past 80 years. The yield is the most essential and intricate trait for the genetic improvement of crops as it displays the interaction of the environment with all the advance procedures that occurs throughout the life process (2). This was the most profitable feature of genetics until not long ago.
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... Mapping and Candidate Gene Analysis for Plant Architecture Traits Using Whole Genome Re-Sequencing in Rice http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935628/

(4) Mutations and quantitative genetic variation: lessons from Drosophila http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1544/1229.long (5) Quantitative Genetic Variation of Odor-Guided Behaviour in a Natural Population of Drosophila rnelanogaster http://www.genetics.org/content/144/2/727.full.pdf

(6) Wilhelm Johannsen's Genotype-Phenotype Distinction http://embryo.asu.edu/pages/wilhelm-johannsens-genotype-phenotype-distinction (7) An analysis of Wilhelm Johannsen’s genetical term ”genotype” 1909-26 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1601-5223.1975.tb01456.x/pdf (8) Griffiths AJF, Miller JH, Suzuki DT, et al. An Introduction to Genetic Analysis. 7th edition New York: W. H. Freeman; 2000.

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