Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • From The Editors
  • Published:

From the editors

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 11, page 813 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

We have become used to considering more than one gene at a time, so why not consider more than one trait at a time? And why not add in some environmental variation too? Yes, it's complicated, but two Reviews in this month's issue discuss why this should be the future for both plant and animal research.

In plants, linking traits to genes has been given a recent boost by the development of tools for genome-wide association studies (discussed in a Review by Bergelson and Roux on p867 for Arabidopsis thaliana and in a Research Highlight on p816 for rice). In an agricultural context, identifying genes that underlie phenotypic variation can have enormous benefits for improving crop quality and yield. But the ecological conditions that plants are exposed to around the world vary tremendously. Bergelson and Roux argue that greater benefit will be derived if ecology is added to the mix, with plants being phenotyped under different natural conditions.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

From the editors. Nat Rev Genet 11, 813 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2919

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2919

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing