Foreward

Quantitative Genetics has been part of the curriculum at the University of Guelph for decades. Originally coded as 40-306 and later as MBG-3060, it wasn’t a new course when I took it in the fall of 1978. The oral history in the department reached back to the 1960s and it was being taught then. An old copy of J.L. Lush’s notes from the 1930s that came with my office bearing a library resource tag indicating it was removed from the Ontario Agricultural College library collection suggests 40-306 Quantitative Genetics may actually have started as an OAC course and likely pre-dates the founding of the university in 1964. This e-book is designed as an upper level undergraduate text covering what I feel is considered classical Quantitative Genetics from Mendelian inheritance to mass selection. There’s also a bit of basic QTL detection because this is where Quantitative Genetics becomes most relevant again, providing the analysis tools to explore genomes and associations between phenotypes and genotypes.

What is really amazing about Quantitative Genetics is that in spite of being over 100 years old, the theory is holding up under the renewed scrutiny. Although early pioneers in this field were not able to genotype entire populations, they got the theory right. Now that it is feasible and cost effective to genotype a large number of individuals we have been able to test and use the original theory to analyze and add value to molecular genetic information.

In keeping with the trend to Quantitative Genetics being more relevant than ever before, this e-book format is a recent addition to the learning resources to expand the instructional options for students and instructors. In my own teaching, over the years I noticed that a number of students were successfully using the lecture notes I provided to study the course material on their own. Combined with online quizzes, all of the course requirements could be met without attending the scheduled components except formal exams. Discussions at the World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production (WCGALP) in 2018 in Aukland, New Zealand led to the development of this free e-book as a learning resource in support of those students who find this format fits their learning style and in support of instructors world-wide who are looking for affordable resources for teaching genetics.

This book approaches the subject from the roots of the course it was developed from – livestock genetics. The examples are derived from livestock but modules have been clustered in a way that hopefully allows for customizing examples to local species and preferences. The notation follows the way I was taught this material and in what seems to be the de facto standard established by the landmark textbook “Introduction to Quantitative Genetics” originally written by Douglas Falconer and first published in the early 1960s. The topic progression is based on over two decades of experience teaching this material in a 12-week semester to a class that grew from about 100 students to over 450 students at peak enrolment.