An annotated consensus genetic map for Pinus taeda L. and extent of linkage disequilibrium in three genotype-phenotype discovery populations

A consensus genetic map for Pinus taeda (loblolly pine) was constructed by merging three previously published maps with a map from a pseudo-backcross between P. taeda and P. elliottii (slash pine). The consensus map positioned 4981 markers via genotyping of 1251 individuals from four pedigrees. It is the densest linkage map for a conifer to date. Average marker spacing was 0.48 centiMorgans and total map length was 2372 centiMorgans. Functional predictions for 4762 markers for expressed sequence tags were improved by alignment to full-length P. taeda transcripts. Alignments to the P. taeda genome mapped 4225 scaffold sequences onto linkage groups. The consensus genetic map was used to compare the extent of genome-wide linkage disequilibrium in an association population of distantly related P. taeda individuals (ADEPT2), a multiple-family pedigree used for genomic selection studies (CCLONES), and a full-sib quantitative trait locus mapping population (BC1). Weak linkage disequilibrium was observed in CCLONES and ADEPT2. Average squared correlations, R2, between genotypes at SNPs less than one centiMorgan apart was less than 0.05 in both populations and R2 did not decay substantially with genetic distance. By contrast, strong and extended linkage disequilibrium was observed among BC1 full-sibs where average R2 decayed from 0.8 to less than 0.1 over 53 centiMorgans. The consensus map and analysis of linkage disequilibrium establish a foundation for comparative association and quantitative trait locus mapping between genotype-phenotype discovery populations.