Biochemical heterozygosity and phenotypic variability of polygenic traits.

Abstract

Using the theory of additive genetic variability of a polygenic trait, it is shown that an individual's heterozygosity at the loci governing the trait cannot be determined accurately from observations on phenotypes alone. Furthermore, the negative association between heterozygosity and phenotypic variance, and a positive correlation of the frequency of the modal class of a phenotypic trait and the extent of heterozygosity can be explained by additive allelic effects. It is argued that while the number of heterozygous loci in an individual may not be a good indicator of the individual's genomic heterozygosity, there is evidence that some of the biochemical loci may reflect genetic variation at the loci controlling phenotypic polymorphism. Thus the observed relationship between biochemical heterozygosity and phenotypic variance may not constitute hard evidence of heterosis, overdominance, or associative overdominance.