Reconstruction of the Largest Pedigree Network for Pear Cultivars and Evaluation of the Genetic Diversity of the USDA-ARS National Pyrus Collection

The USDA-ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository (NCGR) in Corvallis, Oregon, maintains one of the world’s largest and most diverse living Pyrus collection. A thorough genetic characterization of this germplasm will provide relevant information to optimize the conservation strategy of pear biodiversity, support the use of this germplasm in breeding, and increase our knowledge of Pyrus taxonomy, evolution, and domestication. In the last two decades simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers have been used at the NCGR for cultivar identification and small population structure analysis. However, the recent development of the Applied Biosystems Axiom Pear 70K Genotyping Array has allowed high-density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based genotyping of almost the entire collection. In this study, we have analyzed this rich dataset to discover new synonyms and mutants, identify putative labeling errors in the collection, reconstruct the largest pear cultivar pedigree and further elucidate the genetic diversity of Pyrus.