Final answer:
The heritability of quantitative traits is estimated using broad-sense heritability, which includes all genetic variance, and narrow-sense heritability, which estimates the additive genetic factors. These measures help analyze the genetic contribution to phenotypic variance in traits that exhibit continuous variation.
Step-by-step explanation:
The measure used for the heritability of quantitative traits in a population is often estimated by the broad-sense heritability, which is the proportion of phenotypic variance in a population that is attributable to genetic variance. This can be further analyzed using techniques like variance components analysis where genetic variance is partitioned into components due to additive genetic effects, dominance, and gene-gene interactions. For more precise studies, narrow-sense heritability, which estimates the proportion of phenotypic variance due to additive genetic factors alone, can be used. These are typically estimated using statistical methods such as the analysis of variance (ANOVA) to separate environmental and genetic factors affecting phenotypic traits that show continuous variation.