Heritability of seed weight in Maritime pine, a relevant trait in the transmission of environmental maternal effects.

ABSTRACT: Quantitative seed provisioning is an important life-history trait with strong effects on offspring phenotype and fitness. As for any other trait, heritability estimates are vital for understanding its evolutionary dynamics. However, being a trait in between two generations, estimating additive genetic variation of seed provisioning requires complex quantitative genetic approaches for distinguishing between true genetic and environmental maternal effects. Here, using Maritime pine as a long-lived plant model, we quantified additive genetic variation of cone and seed weight (SW) mean and SW within-individual variation. We used a powerful approach combining both half-sib analysis and parent-offspring regression using several common garden tests established in contrasting environments to separ

SUBMITTER: Zas R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4815597 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature