Abstract
Core collections (CCs) constitute a key tool for the characterization and management of genetic resources (GR). When the institutions involved in GR preservation decide to define a CC, they frequently prefer to select accessions based not only on strictly objective criteria, but also to add others following expert knowledge considerations (popularity, prestige, role in breeding history, or presence of phenotypic features of interest). The aim of this study was to evaluate the implications of approaches that combine formal analytical procedures and expert knowledge on the efficiency of CC definition through a case study to establish a pear CC from the Swiss National Pear Inventory. The CC had to represent a maximum of the genetic diversity, not to exceed 150 accessions, and required to include a priority set (SPPS) with 86 genotypes selected based on expert knowledge. In total, nine strategies were evaluated, resulting of combining compositions of the dataset sampled, sampling sizes and methods. The CCs sampled by mixed approaches provided similar scores, irrespective of the approach considered, and obtained similar efficiency in optimizing the genetic diversity retained. Therefore, mixed approaches can be an appropriate choice for applications involving genetic conservation in tree germplasm collections.
Highlights
One of the major challenges genebank managers face to is the necessity of increasing the accessibility of their collections to a broad panel of potential users such as plant breeders, geneticists and farmers[1]
A total of 412 alleles were identified in the 841 unique genotypes across the 15 SSR markers, 78.6% and 50.0% occurring at frequencies below 5% and 1%, respectively
Further information about the genetic diversity of the Swiss National Pear Inventory is provided in Supplementary Text S1
Summary
One of the major challenges genebank managers face to is the necessity of increasing the accessibility of their collections to a broad panel of potential users such as plant breeders, geneticists and farmers[1]. It is sensible that those institutions prefer including in CC cultivars which have played an important role in breeding history, are popular, prestigious or emblematic among local growers and/or consumers, are used as a standard in research in a given species, or exhibit some phenotypic features of interest Some of these conditions arise on the unneglectable role that genetic resources play in an ecological and cultural dimension, beyond the www.nature.com/scientificreports/. There is a need of evaluating how building a CC based on mixed approaches for entry selection, i.e. combining formal analytical procedures maximizing the diversity with some additional ‘pragmatic’ considerations, affects the efficiency of the core collection. To the best of our knowledge, despite its relevance, this issue has not been addressed to date In this context, the main aim of this study was to evaluate the implications that using mixed approaches that combine formal analytical procedures and ‘expert knowledge’ have on the efficiency of CC definition. This study allowed evaluating the genetic diversity at the Swiss national-level for this species for the first time, as well as shedding light into the distribution of this material into population subdivisions
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