Gene-culture co-evolution: teaching, learning, and correlations between relatives

Abstract

Heritability, the fraction of phenotypic variance attributable to the action of genes, is usually derived from a linear statistical partition of variance. In this paper we study a dichotomous phenotype whose transmission from parents to offspring depends on the parents’ phenotypes and the offspring’s genotype. Each individual is then represented as a phenogenotype. We derive expressions for each component of phenotypic variance and for covariances between relatives of various degrees. The resulting heritability estimates vary with the rates of phenotypic transmission as well as with the genetic contribution to the phenotype. Assortative mating by phenotype in parents is also shown to contribute to the correlations between relatives. In addition, we show that the frequency of alleles at genes affecting the phenotypes strongly affects standard heritability measures. This is important because for most complex traits these allele frequencies cannot be ascertained.

Keywords:

• gene-culture coevolution
• correlations between relatives
• heritability
• assortative mating

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marcus W. Feldman

Marcus Feldman is Professor of Biology at Stanford University. His work applies mathematics and computational analysis to biological and cultural evolution, demography, and human population genetics. He is author of over 500 publications and nine books. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Freddy B. Christiansen

Freddy Bugge Christiansen is Professor of Population Biology at Aarhus University. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics, Statistics and Genetics from Aarhus University between 1966 to 1971. He was postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in 1973 and 1974, and has regularly visited Stanford since that time.

Sarah P. Otto

Sarah (Sally) P. Otto is at the Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia. She received her from Ph.D. Stanford University. With over 150 publications and a book, she has received numerous awards including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Steacie Prize, a Canada Research Chair, and fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada and the National Academy of Sciences.