Plant and Animal Genome XXIV Conference

January 08 - 13, 2016

3103

Genomic Selection and Genome-Wide Association Studies

Genomic Selection and Genomewide Association Studies (GS+GWAS) are promising areas where genomics technologies are well integrated into plant and animal improvement practices. The great interest in these areas has been clearly demonstrated by the rapid surge of journal publications and citations in plants and animals. A set of pioneering research have established the theoretical foundation of GS+GWAS in crops and animals. Array-based genotyping has also been established in many crop and animal species, facilitating the application of GS in plant and animal improvement. More recently, Genotyping-by-Sequencing (GBS) significantly reduced the cost of genotyping, making regular GS of complex traits possible in many research programs. Besides embedding prediction procedure in the actual breeding populations, various other applications of GS include cultivar/inbred/individual performance prediction, hybrid combination prediction, parental selection, germplasm utilization, across environment prediction, and wild introgression. While thousands of GWAS have been reported in human genetics, research in plant and animals is still very limited. The dramatic increase of sequencing capacity, combined with the development of high throughput phenotypic technologies, would eventually make it feasible to conduct routine GWAS in plants and animals. The audience of this workshop will be plant (field crops, vegetables, and trees) and animal breeders, geneticists (genomics + quantitative genetics + population genetics), physiologists, statisticians, bioinformatics and computer scientists. Frequently used terms include GS, GWAS, GBS, MAS, MARS, QTL mapping, modeling fitting, cross-validation, Bayesian, BLUP, mixed model, ridge regression, population structure, kinship, genetic relationship, SNP, haplotype, breeding cycle, and genetic gain.