Thistimely text presents a comprehensive guide to genetic association, a new andrapidly expanding field that aims to elucidate how our genetic code (genotypes)influences the traits we possess (phenotypes). The book provides a detailedreview of methods of gene mapping used in association with experimentalcrosses, as well as genome-wide association studies. Emphasis is placed onmodel selection procedures for analyzing data from large-scale genome scansbased on specifically designed modifications of the Bayesian informationcriterion. Features: presents a thorough introduction to the theoreticalbackground to studies of genetic association (both genetic and statistical); reviewsthe latest advances in the field; illustrates the properties of methods formapping quantitative trait loci using computer simulations and the analysis ofreal data; discusses open challenges; includes an extensive statisticalappendix as a reference for those who are not totally familiar with thefundamentals of statistics.