Waldmann P, Garcia-Gil MR, Sillanpää MJ
Comparing Bayesian estimates of genetic differentiation of molecular markers and quantitative traits: an application to Pinus sylvestris
Heredity: 2005 94:623-629
Abstract:
Comparison of the level of
differentiation at neutral molecular markers (estimated as F-ST or
G(ST)) with the level of differentiation at quantitative traits (
estimated as Q(ST)) has become a standard tool for inferring that there
is differential selection between populations. We estimated Q(ST) of
timing of bud set from a latitudinal cline of Pinus sylvestris with a
Bayesian hierarchical variance component method utilizing the
information on the pre-estimated population structure from neutral
molecular markers. Unfortunately, the between-family variances differed
substantially between populations that resulted in a bimodal posterior
of Q(ST) that could not be compared in any sensible way with the
unimodal posterior of the microsatellite F-ST. In order to avoid
publishing studies with flawed Q(ST) estimates, we recommend that
future studies should present heritability estimates for each trait and
population. Moreover, to detect variance heterogeneity in frequentist
methods ( ANOVA and REML), it is of essential importance to check also
that the residuals are normally distributed and do not follow any
systematically deviating trends.
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