Book reviews

The achievements of the so called ‘Birmingham School of Biometrical Genetics’ founded and developed by Kenneth Mather and John Jinks were described in their classical textbook Biometrical Genetics (1982). This is now out of print. It is therefore good to see that two books have recently been published which update the subject and are likely to prove worthy successors to the earlier textbook. The first of these is Kearsey and Pooni’s The Genetical Analysis of Quantitative Variation (1996) and the second is this one by J. Hill, H.C. Becker and P.M.A. Tigerstedt. This is the fourth book of a series devoted to plant breeding published by Chapman and Hall so that, as might be expected, the emphasis of the Hill et al. book is more towards application. Both books have taken the very worthwhile step of changing the rather unfortunate symbolisation adopted by Mather and Jinks, where d and h referred somewhat confusingly to additive and dominance effects, to a and d, the symbolisation commonly used elsewhere in biometrical genetics. The book is divided into two parts. The first deals with the various methodologies for detecting and analysing the genetic and environmental components of quantitative variation and how these may be used in breeding; the second, the interrelationships between the genotype and the environment. The latter includes extensive descriptions of the methods for evaluating genotype/environment interactions using linear as well as multivariate approaches. These lead on to chapters on stability and adaptation and the breeding for abiotic and biotic stress, followed by a final chapter on the increasingly important problems of how best to maintain and utilise genetic resources. In the first part of the book, the description of the methodologies for analysing components of means and of variation and covariation follow closely the treatment of the subject by Mather and Jinks and by Kearsey and Pooni. There then follow important new sections on the analysis of doubled haploids and lines derived by single seed descent and the ways of using estimates of genetical variation, obtained from early generations, to predict the outcome of crosses. These chapters are well written although marred by a rather minimal treatment of linkage and its consequences for estimation and a lack of any definitions concerning linkage equilibrium/disequilibrium. Two chapters are then devoted to experimental designs, the three North Carolina designs and the complete and partial diallels. There is a fairly full treatment of the diallel cross introduced somewhat quizzically as ‘the ultimate mating design?’. This is one of the most widely used designs, and it is a plus to have its weaknesses and strengths discussed in detail, particularly as there is a great deal of controversy about its usefulness. By contrast, the Kearsey and Pooni book emphasises the weaknesses and downgrades the analysis accordingly. The final chapter of this part of the book is devoted to the principles of selection theory. This encompasses the usual topics, heritabilities, realised and expected responses to selection, and correlated responses and so on. The final few pages of the chapter introduce the subject of the application of markers in breeding and the identification of QTLs. This is a rather disappointing part of the book. This is a rapidly expanding area of interest which should have received greater exposure both theoretically and practically. The treatment of these aspects is much better in the Kearsey and Pooni book. Throughout the present book, examples using data from arable crops, particularly oil seed rape and wheat, are used extensively. This is a good and valuable feature. The book is therefore a very useful addition to the literature on plant breeding and deserves to be read widely, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. One wonders, however, whether in 10 years time the subject will have changed out of all recognition with the continuing onslaught of molecular analytical techniques and gene transfer technology. In this respect the authors could have done their cause a great deal of good by expanding these growth areas and speculating a little about future developments.