Genome-Wide Association Study of Yield Traits in Drought-Stressed Wheat Populations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22688072Keywords:
genome-wide association study, wheat, drought stress, grain yield, single nucleotide polymorphism, Triticum aestivumAbstract
Grain yield stability under water-limited conditions is among the most agronomically important yet genetically
complex traits in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), shaped by numerous loci of individually modest effect that
interact with developmental stage and severity of water deficit. We conducted a genome-wide association study of
grain yield, thousand-kernel weight, grain number per spike and canopy temperature depression in a panel of 287
spring bread wheat accessions drawn from breeding programmes across southern and central Europe,
phenotyped across three seasons under both well-watered and managed post-anthesis drought-stress irrigation
regimes at a single field site. Accessions were genotyped with a 25K single-nucleotide-polymorphism array,
yielding 18,942 polymorphic, quality-filtered markers after linkage-disequilibrium pruning. Mixed-linear-model
association analysis, correcting for population structure and kinship, identified 23 quantitative trait loci significantly
associated with at least one measured trait under drought stress at a Bonferroni-corrected threshold, of which 14
were drought-specific, showing no significant association with the same trait under well-watered conditions. Two
loci on chromosomes 2B and 6A jointly explained 18.3% of phenotypic variance in drought-stressed grain yield
and co-localised with previously reported quantitative trait loci for stay-green and canopy temperature depression,
while a novel locus on chromosome 4D, not previously reported in the wheat drought literature, was associated
with grain number per spike specifically under drought and explained a further 7.6% of trait variance. Candidate
gene analysis within the 4D locus interval identified an ABA-responsive transcription factor homologue as the most
plausible causal candidate. These findings identify both previously validated and novel genomic regions for
marker-assisted selection of drought-resilient yield in bread wheat breeding programmes.
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