Importance of studies of quantitative inherritance . Example of inheritaance of quantitative trait in humans.
Answers
Genetics is the study of how heritable traits are transmitted from parents to offspring. Humans have long observed that traits tend to be similar in families. It wasn’t until the mid-nineteenth century that larger implications of genetic inheritance began to be studied scientifically.
In 1858, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace jointly announced their theory of natural selection. According to Darwin’s observations, in nearly all populations individuals tend to produce far more offspring than are needed to replace the parents. If every individual born were to live and reproduce still more offspring, the population would collapse. Overpopulation leads to competition for resources.
Darwin observed that it is very rare for any two individuals to be exactly alike. He reasoned that these natural variations among individuals lead to natural selection. Individuals born with variations that confer an advantage in obtaining resources or mates have greater chances of reproducing offspring who would inherit the favorable variations. Individuals with different variations might be less likely to reproduce.