CORRELATION BETWEEN THE INDIVIDUAL HETEROZYGOSITY OF PARENTS AND THEIR OFFSPRING

Specific formulations are derived for the correlation between the hete rozygosity of a randomly mating parent and its offspring for a diallel ic locus, and for the correlation when multiple loci are considered. T he expected correlation is maximal, approaching r = 0.50, when allelic frequencies are highly asymmetric, and it is zero when the allelic fr equencies are equal to 0.50. Parent-offspring correlations, up to a ma ximum of 0.50 for diallelic loci, indicate that levels of heterozygosi ty can respond to selection. Multilocus allozyme data from limber pine , Pinus flexilis, and from horses of standardbred and thoroughbred bre eds are used to demonstrate correlations between a parent and its offs pring. The Spearman rank correlation between the heterozygosity of a l imber pine and the mean heterozygosity of her offspring is r = 0.45. C orrelations in the horses range from r = 0.16 to 0.32.