We found that except for three CpG units (2, 3 and 17/18), the methylation patterns of these units are genetically shared by family members, although their heritability levels varied greatly from 0.15 to 0.48.
However, we have shown that this assumption may be true for cis eQTLs but not for trans eQTLs, because while genes with cis eQTLs aggregated at high heritability levels, genes with trans eQTLs shared a similar heritability distribution to that of genes with no eQTLs at all.
We compare the power of our model under different heritability levels, disequilibrium levels and sample sizes.
This revealed that the genes with trans eQTLs shared a similar heritability distribution with genes lacking any eQTLs, i.e. these genes had low heritability levels, distinguishing them from genes with cis eQTLs which had distinctly higher heritability levels.
Because duplication rates determine the mixture proportions for each triploid genotype, their estimates will be affected by the heritability level.
Means ± SD of the 42 MetS phenotypes and levels of their heritability have been previously described [ 26].
In fact, many salmonid phenotypic traits display significant narrow-sense heritabilities although their levels of heritability are quite varied [see recent reviews by Carlson and Seamons (2008) and Garcia de Leaniz et al. (2007)].
On the other hand, traditional quantitative genetic models may not have sufficient power to distinguish phenotypic plasticity and evolution because their assumptions, including heritability and genetic correlations, are often violated (Gienapp et al., 2008).
Likewise, we need to estimate which traits are the ones affecting fitness mostly, including their heritabilities.
Surprisingly, trends were strongest for body mass, in spite of the absence of direct selection, probably because of their higher heritability.
