Genomic heritability estimation for the early life‐history transition related to propensity to migrate in wild rainbow and steelhead trout populations

A previous genomewide association study (GWAS) identified SNP markers associated with propensity to migrate of rainbow and steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in a connected population with free access to the ocean in Upper Yakima River (UYR) and a population in Upper Mann Creek (UMC) that has been sequestered from its access to the ocean for more than 50 years. Applying genomic heritability estimation using the same dataset, we found that smoltification in the UYR population were almost completely determined by additive effects, with 95.5% additive heritability and 4.5% dominance heritability, whereas smoltification in the UMC population had substantial dominance effects, with 0% additive heritability and 39.3% dominance heritability. Dominance test detected one SNP marker ({"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"R30393","term_id":"937054","term_text":"R30393"}}R30393) with significant dominance effect on smoltification (P = 1.98 × 10⁻⁷). Genomic-predicted additive effects completely separated migratory and nonmigratory fish in the UYR population, whereas genomic-predicted dominance effects achieved such complete separation in the UMC population. The UMC population had higher genomic additive and dominance correlations than the UYR population, and fish between these two populations had the least genomic correlations. These results suggested that blocking the free access to the ocean may have reduced genetic diversity and increased genomic similarity associated with the early life-history transition related to propensity to migrate.