Association mapping for wood quality in Pinus pinaster Aquitaine breeding population

Improvement of wood quality related traits is currently hampered by costly chemical and technological assays and the necessity to wait until the trees are nearly mature to evaluate wood properties. The availability of a vast quantity of genomic data opens now a new avenue to identify early selection criteria based on molecular information and therefore increase selection efficiency. Association mapping is becoming a method of choice to identify QTN (quantitative trait nucleotide) that contribute to complex trait variation. The implementation of this approach requires on the one hand knowledge of the molecular mechanisms underlying trait variation and polymorphism within candidate genes, and on the other hand the availability of phenotypically well characterized genetic material. We are developing this strategy in the frame of the French maritime pine breeding program, an economically important forest tree species in the South Western Europe. About 500 trees from the breeding population were evaluated for wood physical and chemical properties through the analysis of 2,800 half-sib progenies and 1,500 clones in 8 field tests. These same trees are being genotyped at 185 SNPs obtained from the sequencing of 41 candidate genes, and an additional set of 200 eSNPs detected in 147 EST-contigs (to be used as control). Statistical association between the breeding values of the 500 trees and their respective genotypes will be tested using mixed models accounting for relatedness among individuals of the breeding population.