Multivariate analysis for hybridization among organisms of unequal ages

Summary

Hybridization has a bearing on growth, nomenclature, speciation, genetics and wildlife management, and plays an important role in the evolution of some species. Often an objective of analysing for hybridization is to estimate the degree of intermediacy of suspected hybrids and thereby specify their distribution in relation to two parental species. It is realised that in a study of hybridization and introgression both additive genetic and non‐additive genetic factors must have important roles to play. M

(1975b) gave two discriminant functions which analyse interbreeding populations with respect to these two sources of variation separately. In this paper the multivariate method of M (1975b) is extended to analyse populations where indviduals need not all be of the same age. Since in actual studies in nature one often encounters populations where individuals differ in their ages, the extended method of analysis presented in this paper offers a realistic and biologically meaningful study of hybridization and introgression.