ecogenetics

Ecogenetics is a branch of genetics that studies genetic traits related to the response to environmental substances. Or, a contraction of ecological genetics, the study of the relationship between a natural population and its genetic structure.

Ecogenetics principally deals with effects of preexisting genetically-determined variability on the response to environmental agents. The word environmental is defined broadly to include the physical, chemical, biological, atmospheric, and climate agents. Ecogenetics, therefore, is an all-embracing term, and concepts such as pharmacogenetics are seen as subcomponents of ecogenetics. This work grew logically from the book entitled Pollutants and High Risk Groups (1978), which presented an overview of the various host factors i.e. age, heredity, diet, preexisting diseases, and lifestyles which affect environmentally-induced disease.