Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics summarizes and synthesizes the diverse empirical literature on phenotypic evolution and adaptive radiation and integrates those findings using the conceptual framework provided by quantitative genetics. The literatures that are summarized deal with quantitative inheritance (including QTL studies), mutation accumulation experiments, modularity and phenotypic integration, measurements of selection (including Fst/Qst studies), responses to deliberate selection (laboratory, barnyard and greenhouse), trait evolution on adaptive landscapes, and the coevolution of species with trait-mediated interactions. I use evolutionary quantitative genetics as a conceptual framework to integrate all of these results, but I do not attempt a comprehensive treatment of theory in this field. Instead, I introduce and use the additive version of this theory, pioneered especially by Russell Lande, which is based on assumptions of prevalent polygeny, pervasive pleiotropy, Gaussian distribution of mutational effects at individual loci, additive inheritance, weak selection, and persistent configuration of adaptive landscapes. This additive version has the advantage that its implications have been explored all the way from the mutation process to macroevolutionary patterns.
For reviews of the book see Pennell & Jiang 2024 and Walsh 2024. Figures in the book can be downloaded from the OUP book companion website and a gallery of all 234 figures can be viewed at my website. The originals of the art work used on the book cover and on chapter banners can be viewed at Fine Art America which also sells art replicas on canvas, coffee mugs, notebooks, etc.
Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics was published in June 2023 and is available from Amazon, Oxford Univ. Press, and other book dealers.
