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Summary: Phenotypic plasticity describes a genotype's ability to produce different phenotypes in response to different environments. Breeding crops that exhibit appropriate levels of plasticity for future climates will be crucial to meeting global demand, but knowledge of the critical environmental factors is limited to a handful of well‐studied major crops.Using 727 maize (Zea mays L.) hybrids phenotyped for grain yield in 45 environments, we investigated the ability of a genetic algorithm and two other methods to identify environmental determinants of grain yield from a large set of candidate environmental variables constructed using minimal assumptions.The genetic algorithm identified pre‐ and postanthesis maximum temperature, mid‐season solar radiation, and whole season net evapotranspiration as the four most important variables from a candidate set of 9150. Importantly, these four variables are supported by previous literature. After calculating reaction norms for each environmental variable, candidate genes were identified and gene annotations investigated to demonstrate how this method can generate insights into phenotypic plasticity.The genetic algorithm successfully identified known environmental determinants of hybrid maize grain yield. This demonstrates that the methodology could be applied to other less well‐studied phenotypes and crops to improve understanding of phenotypic plasticity and facilitate breeding crops for future climates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the interplay between environmental conditions and phenotypes is a fundamental goal of biology. Unfortunately, data that include observations on phenotype and environment are highly heterogeneous and thus difficult to find and integrate. One approach that is likely to improve the status quo involves the use of ontologies to standardize and link data about phenotypes and environments. Specifying and linking data through ontologies will allow researchers to increase the scope and flexibility of large-scale analyses aided by modern computing methods. Investments in this area would advance diverse fields such as ecology, phylogenetics, and conservation biology. While several biological ontologies are well-developed, using them to link phenotypes and environments is rare because of gaps in ontological coverage and limits to interoperability among ontologies and disciplines. In this manuscript, we present (1) use cases from diverse disciplines to illustrate questions that could be answered more efficiently using a robust linkage between phenotypes and environments, (2) two proof-of-concept analyses that show the value of linking phenotypes to environments in fishes and amphibians, and (3) two proposed example data models for linking phenotypes and environments using the extensible observation ontology (OBOE) and the Biological Collections Ontology (BCO); these provide a starting point for the development of a data model linking phenotypes and environments.

We present a novel approach to genome-wide association studies (GWAS) by leveraging unstructured, spoken phenotypic descriptions to identify genomic regions associated with maize traits. Utilizing the Wisconsin Diversity panel, we collected spoken descriptions of Zea mays ssp. mays traits, converting these qualitative observations into quantitative data amenable to GWAS analysis. First, we determined that visually striking phenotypes could be detected from unstructured spoken phenotypic descriptions. Next, we developed two methods to process the same descriptions to derive the trait plant height, a well-characterized phenotypic feature in maize: (1) a semantic similarity metric that assigns a score based on the resemblance of each observation to the concept of 'tallness' and (2) a manual scoring system that categorizes and assigns values to phrases related to plant height. Our analysis successfully corroborated known genomic associations and uncovered novel candidate genes potentially linked to plant height. Some of these genes are associated with gene ontology terms that suggest a plausible involvement in determining plant stature. This proof-of-concept demonstrates the viability of spoken phenotypic descriptions in GWAS and introduces a scalable framework for incorporating unstructured language data into genetic association studies. This methodology has the potential not only to enrich the phenotypic data used in GWAS and to enhance the discovery of genetic elements linked to complex traits but also to expand the repertoire of phenotype data collection methods available for use in the field environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To meet the challenges of an increasing global population and multiple environmental stressors on agricultural production, it is essential to better understand how genotype (G) and environment (E) influence phenotype for traits of economic importance in agriculture. To accomplish this requires interdisciplinary teams consisting of researchers from crop and livestock sciences, genetics, genomics, computational and data sciences, and engineering. Towards this end, in 2020, Congress established the Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative (AG2PI). An important objective of this presentation is to encourage strong participation of animal science researchers and industry in ongoing AG2PI activities. The purpose of the initial AG2PI project, awarded to Iowa State University and the Universities of Arizona, Idaho and Nebraska, was to assemble and prepare a community to conduct AG2P research across the plant and animal kingdoms. The AG2PI project aims to: a) identify research gaps and opportunities, b) foster community solutions to these challenges, and c) rapidly disseminate findings for community use. Training workshops, field days, conferences, community surveys, and seed grants have all contributed to these goals. Opinions and ideas from the crop and livestock genetics communities are key to advancing AG2P science and related work. AG2PI has used online community surveys and in-person conferences to gather these and to facilitate transdisciplinary communications. In September 2022, AG2PI held a conference titled "Thinking Big: Visualizing the Future of AG2PI", in which attendees participated in focused small group discussions to identify which agricultural G2P-related topics are most critical for future R&D funding and which may be the most difficult to achieve. These discussions are summarized in a concept paper for the community, shared with USDA-NIFA, and submitted for publication. A follow-up conference was held June 14-15, 2023, in Kansas City, where people working in both the animal and plant genetics research communities and industry stakeholders attended. Outcomes from this conference will be summarized in this presentation, and requests for animal scientists to provide further input will be made. The future of agricultural genomics will be shaped by both the participants in AG2PI and the solutions developed by the AG2PI community. Funding for this work comes from USDA NIFA awards 2022-70412-38454, 2021-70412-35233, and 2020-70412-32615. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The USDA-NIFA is developing a vision for agricultural genomics to phenomics research (AG2P) through two programs. In 2017, the Functional Annotation of Animal Genomes (FAANG) request for proposals was released, which has provided over $9 Million in funding to groups over the past five years to create public resources for the study of regulatory and other functional elements in agriculturally important species. This effort has been extended by other countries who have contributed another $20 Million+ (equivalent). These initial resource-building efforts are providing extensive new epigenetic data that are used to better understand the function of animal genomes and to enhance animal genetic improvement. However, such research demonstrates new infrastructure is needed across the agricultural enterprise to predict phenotypes from genome information. In 2020, NIFA inaugurated the Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative program (AG2PI), and an important objective of this presentation is to encourage strong participation of animal genomic researchers and industry in the AG2PI project. The purpose of AG2PI is to assemble and prepare a community to conduct AG2P research across the plant and animal kingdoms. The focus of the AG2PI is: a) identifying research gaps and opportunities, b) fostering community solutions to these challenges, and c) rapidly disseminating findings. Training workshops, field days, conferences, community surveys, and seed grants have all contributed to these goals. Opinions and ideas from the crop, livestock and aquaculture genetics communities are key to advancing G2P science and related work. The AG2PI uses online community surveys and in-person conferences to gather these and to facilitate transdisciplinary communications. In September 2022, AG2PI held a conference entitled "Thinking Big: Visualizing the Future of AG2PI", in which attendees focused small group discussions to identify which agricultural G2P-related topics are most critical for future R&D funding and which may be the most difficult to achieve. These discussions have been summarized in a concept paper for the community and shared with USDA-NIFA. A follow-up conference is planned for June 2023 in Kansas City, which we hope many members from animal genetics research and industry will attend. The future of agricultural genomics will be shaped by both the participants in AG2PI and the solutions developed by the AG2PI community. USDA NIFA awards 2022-70412-38454, 2021-70412-35233, and 2020-70412-32615. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]