A unifying experimental design for dissecting tree genomes

Linkage mapping and association mapping are adopted as an approach of choice for dissecting complex traits, but each shows a limitation when used alone. We propose an open-pollinated (OP) family design to integrate these two approaches into an organizing framework. The design unifies the strengths of population and quantitative genetic studies for evolutionary inference and high-resolution gene mapping. It particularly suits genome dissection of forest trees given their extant populations that are mostly undomesticated.