Heritability and Genetic advance
Dr. R. K. Patel
• Heritability and genetic advance are the two
important selection parameters.
• This will help in predicting the gain under selection.
• Heritability :
– It is the ratio of genotypic variance to the phenotypic
variance.
– It expressed in percentage.
– It is nothing but heritable portion of phenotypic
variance.
– It is good index of transmission of characters from
parents to their offspring.
– It will be helpful to the plant breeder in selection of
elite genotypes from the diverse genetic population.
Types of heritability
1. Broad sense heritability
2. Narrow sense heritability
Broad sense heritability :
• It is the ratio of genotypic variance to total or phenotypic
variance
• It includes additive, dominance and epistatic variances.
• It can be estimated from both parental as well as segregating
populations.
• It is estimated from total genetic variance.
• It is more useful in animal breeding than in plant breeding.
B’cos in plant breeding the environmental effects can not be
controlled.
• It is useful in the selection of elite types from homozygous
material.
Narrow sense heritability :
It is the ratio of additive variance to total variance.
It play important role in selection process in plant
breeding.
To estimate narrow sense heritability crosses have
to be made in definite fashion.
It is useful in both plant as well as animal
breeding.
It is useful in the selection of elite types from
segregating population.
It is calculated with the help of following formulla
Heritability (ns) = 1/2D / VP
Particular Broad sense Narrow sense
Variance used for Total genetic Additive variance
estimation variance
Population used Both parental as Specific
well as populations
segregating
Useful in Homozygous lines Segregating
selection of elite material
types
Application in Animal breeding Both animal as
well as plant
breeding
Estimation of heritability
1. From simple trials
– Here first of all from replicated data of simple
experiment of several genotypes first the
genotypic, phenotypic and environmental
variances are calculated and then heritability
estimated as
Only ½ D is used to calculate the heritability in narrow sense
because the phenotypic variance of F2 has only ½ D as its
additive component
For generation mean analysis :
Scales for broad sense and narrow sense heritability
Sr. Values of heritability percent and scales
No.
Narrow sense Scale / Rate Broad sense Scale / Rate
1 Below 40 Low Below 40 Low
2 41 to 50 Medium 40 to 60 Medium
3 Above 50 High 61 to 80 High
4 -- -- Above 80 Very high
Factor influencing heritability
• Types of genetic materials
– Greater the genotypic variance higher the
heritability
– Diverse parents expected to express more genetic
variance than closely related parents.
– The degree of inbreeding also influence the
genetic variance
– Heritability estimates are higher in F4/F5 than in
F2 after inbreeding
• Sample size
– Large sample means are near to population mean.
• Sampling method
– two types : random and unbiased sampling
– Random sampling provide unbiased estimate of
genetic variance and thereby heritability, while non
random sampling gives bias estimate
• Conduct of experiment
– Heritability estimates are influenced by experimental
error. B’cos error variance is a part of denominator
used in estimation of heritability.
– To minimise it, it requires higher plot size or increase
numbers of replications.
– Multilocation trialing also gives more reliable
• Methods of calculation
– Various methods are there
– Broad sense heritability are always higher than
narrow sense heritability.
• Effect of linkage
– Heritability estimate are considerable influenced
by presence of linkage.
Advantages
• It will be helpful in predicting the transmission of
characters from parents to offspring
• Estimates are free from genetical assumptions
• Broad sense heritability estimates are calculated from
parental as well as hybrid populations.
• It helps in selection of elite genotypes from mixed
parental population.
• Narrow sense heritability gives an idea about the
additive genetic variance.
• It can be worked out both for self as well as cross
pollinated crops.
Limitations
• Estimates are based on variances, hence
statistically not more reliable and robust.
• Components of variances sometimes turn out
to be negative, resulting into negative
estimates of heritability.
• Heritability is the material specific.
Coheritability
• It refers to the ratio of genetic covariance to the
phenotypic covariance.
• It deals with simultaneous inheritance of two characters
at a time.
• Coheritability takes both genotypic and phenotypic
covariances into account and helps in understanding
the changes taken place in pairs of polygenic characters.
Genetic advance
• Improvement in the mean genotypic value of
the selected plants over the parental
population is known as genetic advance.
• It is the measure of the genetic gain under
selection.
• The success of genetic advance under
selection depends upon
– Genetic variability
– Heritability
– Selection intensity
Computation of genetic advance
• Knowledge of genetic gain and selection
differential is essential for computation of
genetic advance.
• Genetic gain : The difference between mean
phenotypic values of the progeny of the
selected plants and the base parental
population is known as genetic gain.
• Genetic gain is denoted by R
Where, XP = Mean phenotypic value of the progeny and
XO = Mean phenotypic value of the base population
Selection differential
• The difference between the mean phenotypic
value of the selected plants and mean
phenotypic value of the parental population is
termed as selection differential.
• It is the measure of intensity of selection and
denoted by K.
• K values are varies with the intensity of
selection.
XS : mean phenotypic value of selected plant.
XO – mean phenotypic value of parental population.
• Generally for pureline and clones genetic
advance estimated using broad sense
heritability but for segregating populations it
can be estimated using narrow sense
heritability. The use of narrow sense
heritability in above cases gives higher
estimates of genetic advance.
Scales for genetic advance
Sr. No. Values of genetic Rate or scale
advance
1 Less than 10 Low
2 10 to 20 Medium
3 Above 20 High
Heritability - Interpretation of the results
• If the value of the broad sense heritability is high, it indicate
that though the character is least influenced by the
environmental effects, the selection of improvement of such
character may not be useful b’cos it includes both fixable
and non fixable variances.
• If the value of the broad sense heritability is low, it indicate
that the character is highly influenced by the environmental
effect.
• If the value of the narrow sense heritability is high, it
indicate that the character is governed by the additive genes
and selection for the such character would be rewarding.
• If the value of the narrow sense heritability is low, it indicate
that the character is governed by the non additive genes
and heterosis breeding for the such character would be
rewarding.
Genetic advance
• If the value of the genetic advance is high, it
shows that the character is governed by
additive genes and selection would be
rewarding for the such trait.
• If the value of the genetic advance is low, it
shows that the character is governed by non-
additive genes and heterosis breeding may be
useful for the such trait.
Conclusion based on Heritability and Genetic advance
Heritability GA Result
High High Role of additive gene effects and selection is
rewarding
High Low Role of non additive gene action. High
heritability is due to environmental influence
Low High Role of additive gene effects and selection is
effective. Low heritability is due to
environmental effect
Low Low Higher influence of environmental effect and
selection would be non effective.
