Simulation of GEI and QEI Using a Genotype to Phenotype Model with Physiological Parameters Without GEI

• Activity Number: 507
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Biometrics Section
• Author(s): Paulo C. Rodrigues*+
• Companies: Wageningen University
• Keywords: genotype by environment interaction ; QTL by environment interaction ; crop growth model ; multi-environment trials ; simulation ; pepper

Abstract

A different response of genotypes across environments is frequent in multi-location trials and is known as genotype by environment interaction (GEI). When the analysis is made in the whole genome, the interactions of interest are between QTL and environment (QEI). Simulation tools such as genotype to phenotype models have proved to be useful to better understand these interactions.

This paper presents a crop growth model (i.e. a non-linear function of purely genotypic components and environmental inputs which integrates over time) with 7 physiological parameters, to simulate two-way tables with yield. After modelling the genetic basis under each of the 7 model parameters we are able to predict yield from simple DNA profiles together with environmental variables.

Standard statistical models, such as AMMI models, linear mixed models, and factorial regression, are used to explore and understand the GEI and QEI of the two-way tables. The results from these analyses are proved to be directly linked to the original model parameters.

GEI and QEI were simulated for sweet pepper, and the QTL detected for final yield matched the QTL assigned to most of the model parameters.