Quantitative genetic theory provides a means of estimating the evolutionary potential of natural populations. However, this approach was previously only feasible in systems where the genetic relatedness between individuals could be inferred from pedigrees or experimental crosses. The genomic revolution opened up the possibility of obtaining the realized proportion of genome shared among individuals in natural populations of virtually any species, which could promise (more) accurate estimates of quantitative genetic parameters in virtually any species. Such a ‘genomic’ quantitative genetics approach relies on fewer assumptions, offers a greater methodological flexibility, and is thus expected to greatly enhance our understanding of evolution in natural populations, for example, in the context of adaptation to environmental change, eco-evolutionary dynamics, and biodiversity conservation.

定量遗传理论为估算自然种群的进化潜力提供了一种手段。但是，这种方法以前仅在可以从谱系或实验杂交推断出个体之间的遗传相关性的系统中可行。基因组革命打开了获得实际上在任何物种的自然种群中个体之间共享的基因组实际比例的可能性，这有望（几乎）对几乎任何物种的定量遗传参数进行准确的估计。这种“基因组”定量遗传学方法依赖较少的假设，提供了更大的方法灵活性，因此有望大大增强我们对自然种群进化的理解，例如，在适应环境变化的背景下，