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Science 7 August 2009:
Vol. 325. no. 5941, pp. 714 - 718
DOI: 10.1126/science.1174276
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Research Articles

The Genetic Architecture of Maize Flowering Time

Edward S. Buckler,1,2,3,* James B. Holland,1,4,* Peter J. Bradbury,1,2 Charlotte B. Acharya,2 Patrick J. Brown,2 Chris Browne,1,5 Elhan Ersoz,2 Sherry Flint-Garcia,1,5 Arturo Garcia,1,5 Jeffrey C. Glaubitz,6 Major M. Goodman,4 Carlos Harjes,7 Kate Guill,1,5 Dallas E. Kroon,2 Sara Larsson,3 Nicholas K. Lepak,1,3 Huihui Li,8,2,9 Sharon E. Mitchell,2 Gael Pressoir,2 Jason A. Peiffer,3 Marco Oropeza Rosas,4 Torbert R. Rocheford,10,11 M. Cinta Romay,2,12 Susan Romero,2 Stella Salvo,1,4 Hector Sanchez Villeda,5,13 H. Sofia da Silva,10 Qi Sun,14 Feng Tian,2 Narasimham Upadyayula,10 Doreen Ware,1,15 Heather Yates,2 Jianming Yu,16 Zhiwu Zhang,2 Stephen Kresovich,2,* Michael D. McMullen1,5,*

Flowering time is a complex trait that controls adaptation of plants to their local environment in the outcrossing species Zea mays (maize). We dissected variation for flowering time with a set of 5000 recombinant inbred lines (maize Nested Association Mapping population, NAM). Nearly a million plants were assayed in eight environments but showed no evidence for any single large-effect quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Instead, we identified evidence for numerous small-effect QTLs shared among families; however, allelic effects differ across founder lines. We identified no individual QTLs at which allelic effects are determined by geographic origin or large effects for epistasis or environmental interactions. Thus, a simple additive model accurately predicts flowering time for maize, in contrast to the genetic architecture observed in the selfing plant species rice and Arabidopsis.

1 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)–Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS).
2 Institute for Genomic Diversity, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
3 Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
4 Department of Crop Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA.
5 Division of Plant Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
6 Laboratory of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
7 Monsanto Company, Leesburg, GA 31763, USA.
8 School of Mathematical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
9 Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China.
10 Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
11 Department of Agronomy, Purdue University, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
12 Mision Biologica de Galicia (CSIC), Pontevedra 36080, Spain.
13 CIMMYT, INT, Crop Research Laboratory, Carretera Mex-Veracruz, CP 56130, Mexico.
14 Computational Biology Service Unit, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
15 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA.
16 Department of Agronomy, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: esb33{at}cornell.edu (E.S.B.); james_holland{at}ncsu.edu (J.B.H.); sk20{at}cornell.edu (S.K.); mcmullenm{at}missouri.edu (M.D.M.)

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Comparison of Mating Designs for Establishing Nested Association Mapping Populations in Maize and Arabidopsis thaliana.
B. Stich (2009)
Genetics 183, 1525-1534
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Fine Mapping and Haplotype Structure Analysis of a Major Flowering Time Quantitative Trait Locus on Maize Chromosome 10.
S. Ducrocq, C. Giauffret, D. Madur, V. Combes, F. Dumas, S. Jouanne, D. Coubriche, P. Jamin, L. Moreau, and A. Charcosset (2009)
Genetics 183, 1555-1563
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Solving the Maze.
C. Feuillet and K. Eversole (2009)
Science 326, 1071-1072
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A First-Generation Haplotype Map of Maize.
M. A. Gore, J.-M. Chia, R. J. Elshire, Q. Sun, E. S. Ersoz, B. L. Hurwitz, J. A. Peiffer, M. D. McMullen, G. S. Grills, J. Ross-Ibarra, et al. (2009)
Science 326, 1115-1117
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A-maize-ing Diversity.
T. F. C. Mackay (2009)
Science 325, 688-689
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