Introduction
Standard models in population genetics look up at the evolution of few loci which impact fitness. The variance in fitness is determined by the genetic variance and the environmental variance (and the co-variance between environment and genetics). In this question I am interested only about genetic variance and about what percentage of the total (additive or not) genetic variance in fitness do 'n' loci explain.
Question
In general, in natural populations, what percentage of the total genetic variance is explained by the 'n'- most important loci?
Here, by "most important loci" I mean loci which variance explain much of the total genetic variance.
In other words, the subquestions are of the kind:
- how much of the fitness variance does the most important locus explain?
- How much of the fitness variance do the 3 most important loci explain?
- How much of the fitness variance do the 100 most important loci explain?
Of course, the answer depends on the population under consideration. Factors that might influence the answers are for example
- species
- population size
- environment stability
- …
Beside this question, I also welcome some insights concerning how different factors are likely to influence the answer.