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Genetic and environmental influence on the asymmetry of dermatoglyphic traits
Author(s) -
Pechenkina Ekaterina A.,
Benfer Robert A.,
Vershoubskaya Galina G.,
Kozlov Andrey I.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
american journal of physical anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1096-8644
pISSN - 0002-9483
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1096-8644(200004)111:4<531::aid-ajpa8>3.0.co;2-6
Subject(s) - heritability , fluctuating asymmetry , gene–environment interaction , dermatoglyphics , biology , maternal effect , interaction , analysis of variance , additive genetic effects , principal component analysis , genetics , genotype , evolutionary biology , medicine , pregnancy , statistics , offspring , gene , mathematics , agronomy
Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) is defined as random deviations from bilateral symmetry of the body. Thus, its magnitude is often used to evaluate developmental homeostasis. In this study we evaluate the following hypotheses: 1) FA of dermatoglyphic traits has a significant genetic component; 2) prenatal maternal environment (PME) has a significant effect on the FA of dermatoglyphic traits in developmentally healthy individuals; and 3) genetic or environmental factors affect FA on organismal or systemic levels. Therefore, their effect is better seen in composite scores of FA rather than in FA indices for single traits. We analyzed 15 dermatoglyphic traits from 140 pairs of monozygous twins, 120 pairs of dizygous twins, and 106 pairs of mothers and daughters. All individuals were developmentally healthy. The influence of genetic and environmental factors on FA was evaluated by analysis of variance and regression analysis. For a majority of the traits in our study, FA showed significant but weak heritabilities, with values falling within the 0.20–0.35 range. None of the traits taken separately demonstrated the effect of PME on FA to be significantly greater than zero. The composite score of FA tended to have greater heritability values than individual traits. One of them, obtained in principal components analysis, showed a significant PME effect, supporting the hypothesis that FA is a systemic property. Am J Phys Anthropol 111:531–543, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.