Accelerated forest genetic breeding using genomic selection

Abstract

Chilean forest industry should not pursue development without incorporating advances from current biotechnology and genomics tools. Traditional forest breeding programs have been founded in phenotypic selection based on field testing which is time consuming, and where the prediction of breeding values is subjected to the influence of the environment. The use of marker-assisted selection has been focused on discovering quantitative trait loci using markers related to the expression of commercial traits, although a small fraction of explained genetic variance is usually achieved. In animal breeding, a recent revolutionary technology called genomic selection, defined as the use of dense single nucleotide polymorphism markers to predict genomic breeding values, has allowed taking advantage of all possible marker information in estimating genomic values which are highly correlated with true breeding values. The main aspects of this technology and its potential implications in forest breeding are discussed. While main factors that are controlling the performance of genomic selection should be carefully defined, such as the linkage disequilibrium level, trait heritability and the analytical procedures of estimation and validation of genomic values, it is expected that incorporation of genomic selection in forest breeding programs would allow the early capture of the best genotypes for propagation, selection and deployment in breeding of commercial forest traits.