On the Relative Role of Mutation and Recombination in Responses to Selection for Polygenic Traits in Irradiated Populations of D. Melanogaster

Summary

(1) X-ray treatments are a very efficient tool for inducing polygenic mutation and therefore additive genetic variability for polygenic traits in Drosophila.

(2) Artificial selection can make use of the new genetic variability.

(3) X-ray-induced increase in recombination rates does not seem to be an important factor in determining the observed effects, at least in the described experiments.