Is quantitative genetics still necessary in this age of genomics?

Quantitative genetics and genomics are two different disciplines that have separate evolutions. The quantitative genetics has enormous applications and has contributed a lot in four main distinct fields of plant breeding, animal breeding, evolutionary genetics and human genetics. This field is based on study of inheritance patterns and their underlying mechanisms using biometrical or statistical methods. The analysis of genome aims to identify genes of interest and understand gene expression profile and gene function. This analysis exploits different molecular biology approaches. This review discusses the quantitative genetics and molecular approaches in studies of quantitative traits. It also tries to find out the connection and complementation between approaches of quantitative genetics and molecular biology in the studies of quantitative traits. The information gathered in this review will assist breeders and geneticists in their regular research works. Key words: Gene, genome, genotype, phenotype, trait.