The genetics of reproductive behavior

Understanding the relative contribution of genes and the environment to observed variation in behavior has been the central aim of behavioral geneticists for nearly six decades. This is clearly an important endeavour as behavior must have a genetic basis if it is to evolve and drive key evolutionary processes such as adaptation and speciation (Boake 1994). However, after decades of empirical research on this topic, it is safe to say that the majority of researchers would agree that most (if not all) behaviors have a genetic basis, but are also influenced, to some degree, by the environment. Consequently, the question is no longer whether behavior is under genetic control, but rather what is the distribution of genetic effects for behavior (many genes with a small effect or few genes with a large effect), how do these genes interact with each other, with genes for other traits, and with the environment, and what are the wider implications of this complex genetic architecture to the evolutionary process?