Ecologists and evolutionary biologists are well aware that natural and sexual selection do not operate on traits in isolation, but instead act on combinations of traits. This long-recognized and pervasive phenomenon is known as multivariate selection, or—in the particular case where it favours correlations between interacting traits—correlational selection. Despite broad acknowledgement of correlational selection, the relevant theory has often been overlooked in genomic research. Here, we discuss theory and empirical findings from ecological, quantitative genetic and genomic research, linking key insights from different fields. Correlational selection can operate on both discrete trait combinations and quantitative characters, with profound implications for genomic architecture, linkage, pleiotropy, evolvability, modularity, phenotypic integration and phenotypic plasticity. We synthesize current knowledge and discuss promising research approaches that will enable us to understand how correlational selection shapes genomic architecture, thereby linking quantitative genetic approaches with emerging genomic methods. We suggest that research on correlational selection has great potential to integrate multiple fields in evolutionary biology, including developmental and functional biology, ecology, quantitative genetics, phenotypic polymorphisms, hybrid zones and speciation processes.

生态学家和进化生物学家很清楚，自然选择和性选择不会单独作用于特征，而是作用于特征的组合。这种长期被认可且普遍存在的现象被称为多元选择，或者——在它有利于相互作用特征之间的相关性的特定情况下——相关选择。尽管相关选择得到广泛认可，但相关理论在基因组研究中经常被忽视。在这里，我们讨论了生态、定量遗传和基因组研究的理论和实证结果，并将来自不同领域的关键见解联系起来。相关选择可以对离散性状组合和数量特征进行操作，对基因组结构、连锁、多效性、可进化性、模块化、表型整合和表型可塑性。我们综合当前知识并讨论有前途的研究方法，这些方法将使我们能够了解相关选择如何塑造基因组结构，从而将定量遗传方法与新兴基因组方法联系起来。我们认为相关选择研究具有整合进化生物学多个领域的巨大潜力，包括发育和功能生物学、生态学、数量遗传学、表型多态性、杂交区和物种形成过程。