A fundamental aim of post-genomic 21st century biology is to understand the genotype-phenotype map (GPM) or how specific genetic variation relates to specific phenotypic variation. Quantitative genetics approximates such maps using linear models, and has developed methods to predict the response to selection in a population. The other major field of research concerned with the GPM, developmental evolutionary biology or evo-devo, has found the GPM to be highly nonlinear and complex.  Here we quantify how the predictions of quantitative genetics are affected by the complex, nonlinear maps found in developmental biology. We found that the disagreements between predicted and observed responses to selection are common, roughly in a third of generations, systematic and due to  nonlinear nature of the genotype-phenotype map. They occur at all time scales, even from one generation to the next. Our results are a step towards integrating the fields studying the GPM.

Simulated data for the manuscript "Is evolution predictable? Quantitative genetics under complex genotype-phenotype maps" published in Evolution. Data includes the evolution+development program, the complete evolutionary runs for the core parameter sets, as well as the observed and predicted changes. Observed changes are calculated using the "repetitions" methods and predicted changes are calculated from a halfsib breeding design.