Disentangling directional and fluctuating asymmetry in a genome-wide association study.

8 pages; International audience; Although directional and fluctuating asymmetry have been frequently assessed independently, they are indeed associated concepts both in theory and in practice. However, they can be difficult to disentangle in genome-wide association studies, where the appropriate shape statistics are not fully developed. Although the usage of Procrustes distances to overcome this problem may be tempting, this does not reliably help to identify the underlying genetic components of directional and fluctuating asymmetries. Here, similarities and differences among different approaches have revealed that the genetic component of the skull asymmetry in this population of mice is m…