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Genetic and environmental contributions to the variance of body height in a sample of first and second degree relatives
Author(s) -
Tambs Kristian,
Moum Torbjørn,
Eaves Lindon J.,
Neale Mike C.,
Midthjell Kristian,
LundLarsen Per G.,
Næss Siri
Publication year - 1992
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/ajpa.1330880303
Subject(s) - sibling , grandparent , offspring , demography , dominance (genetics) , biology , population , degree (music) , genetics , psychology , developmental psychology , gene , sociology , pregnancy , physics , acoustics
Abstract Height was measured in a health screening of the population in Nord‐Trøndelag, Norway. Correlations were computed for 24,281 pairs of spouses, 43,613 pairs of parents and offspring, 19,168 pairs of siblings, 1,318 pairs of grandparents and grandchildren, 1,218 cognate avuncular pairs, 849 noncognate avuncular pairs, 175 pairs of same‐sexed twins, and smaller groups of other types of relatives. Fitting of structural equation models showed proportions of additive genetic variance of approximately 0.8 for both sexes and small sex‐specific effects that probably reflect genetic dominance or environmental sibling effects. The correlations between parents and offspring were significantly lower in old than young cohorts, seeming to imply some kind of interaction effect between genes and environment. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.