ArticleEvolution letters2025
Indirect genetic effects increase the heritable variation available to selection and are largest for behaviors: a meta-analysis.
Article in Evolution letters, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Indirect genetic effects across ontogeny in an avian cooperative breeder.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Indirect genetic effects among neighbors promote cooperation and accelerate adaptation in a small-scale human society.Science advances · 2025Article
- Towards assessing indirect genetic effects in dairy cattle.Genetics, selection, evolution : GSE · 2025Article
- Molecular Mechanisms and Regulatory Factors Governing Feed Utilization Efficiency in Laying Hens: Insights for Sustainable Poultry Production and Breeding Optimization.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Evolutionary feedbacks forProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The evolutionary potential of traits is governed by the amount of heritable variation available to selection. While this is typically quantified based on genetic variation in a focal individual for its own traits (direct genetic effects, DGEs), when social interactions occur, genetic variation in interacting partners can influence a focal individual's traits (indirect genetic effects, IGEs). Theory and studies on domesticated species have suggested IGEs can greatly impact evolutionary trajectories, but whether this is true more broadly remains unclear. Here, we perform a systematic review and meta-analysis to quantify the amount of trait variance explained by IGEs and the contribution of IGEs to predictions of adaptive potential. We identified 180 effect sizes from 47 studies across 21 species and found that, on average, IGEs of a single social partner account for a small but statistically significant amount of phenotypic variation (0.03). As IGEs affect the trait values of each interacting group member and due to a typically positive-although statistically nonsignificant-correlation with DGEs (
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