Abstract
List of abbreviationsGSGenomic SelectionBLUPBest Linear Unbiased PredictionEBVsEstimated Breeding ValuesEGVsEstimated genetic ValuesGEBVsGenomic Estimated Breeding ValuesSNPsSingle Nucleotide polymorphismsGxEGenotype-by-environment interactionsGxEGenotype-by-environment interactionsGxGGene-by-gene interactionsGxGxEGene-by-gene-by-environment interactionsuTUnivariate single environment one-step modeluEUnivariate multi environment one-step modelMTMulti-trait single environment one-step modelMEMultivariate single trait multi environment modelAbstractBackgroundGenomic selection (GS) promises to accelerate genetic gain in plant breeding programs especially for long cycle crops like cassava. To practically implement GS in cassava breeding, it is useful to evaluate different GS models and to develop suitable models for an optimized breeding pipeline.MethodsWe compared prediction accuracies from a single-trait (uT) and a multi-trait (MT) mixed model for single environment genetic evaluation (Scenario 1) while for multi-environment evaluation accounting for genotype-by-environment interaction (Scenario 2) we compared accuracies from a univariate (uE) and a multivariate (ME) multi-environment mixed model. We used sixteen years of data for six target cassava traits for these analyses. All models for Scenario 1 and Scenario 2 were based on the one-step approach. A 5-fold cross validation scheme with 10-repeat cycles were used to assess model prediction accuracies.ResultsIn Scenario 1, the MT models had higher prediction accuracies than the uT models for most traits and locations analyzed amounting to 32 percent better prediction accuracy on average. However for Scenario 2, we observed that the ME model had on average (across all locations and traits) 12 percent better predictive power than the uE model.ConclusionWe recommend the use of multivariate mixed models (MT and ME) for cassava genetic evaluation. These models may be useful for other plant species.
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory