| Inbreeding is a well known phenomenon in living beings and its immediate consequence is the decrease in the expression of quantitative traits, known as inbreeding depression. Selfing is the most common system of inbreeding in plant species; however, little has been studied with other less severe inbreeding systems, such that resulting from small population sizes. The present work consisted of the study of the inbreeding effect on quantitative traits as a consequence of reduced population size under panmixy. Three maize (Zea mays L.) populations were used in this study: P1 -- ITA, population derived from the variety IAC-Taiúba; P2 -- represented by 30 subpopulations already submmited to reduced size (N = 5); and P3 - population derived from the... |
