¹Centre for Biometry Wageningen (CBW), DLO-Centre for Plant Breeding and Reproduction Research (CPRO-DLO), PO Box 16, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands

Correspondence: Johan W Van Ooijen, E-mail: j.w.vanooijen@cpro.dlo.nl

Received 4 May 1999; Accepted 28 July 1999.

Abstract

Linkage analysis with molecular genetic markers is a very powerful tool in the biological research of quantitative traits. The lack of an easy way to know what areas of the genome can be designated as statistically significant for containing a gene affecting the quantitative trait of interest hampers the important prediction of the rate of false positives. In this paper four tables, obtained by large-scale simulations, are presented that can be used with a simple formula to get the false-positives rate for analyses of the standard types of experimental populations with diploid species with any size of genome. A new definition of the term 'suggestive linkage' is proposed that allows a more objective comparison of results across species.