What Animal Breeding Has Taught Us about Evolution

We review the impact of developments from animal breeding on our understanding of evolution and on the methodology used in evolutionary biology. The theory developed for improvement of polygenic traits, in particular the breeders' equation and the effects of finite population size, has had a significant influence. The effectiveness of within population selection is exemplified by the continued rapid genetic change, often with concomitant effects on fitness, produced by breeders. Many of the models and methods for estimation of quantitative genetic parameters, notably the animal model, have been motivated by animal breeding problems. Results from selection programs and quantitative trait loci (QTL) experiments show quantitative traits are often highly polygenic and can be adequately modeled by the infinitesimal model.