A factorial mating population between 10 Eucalyptus urophylla S. T. Blake and 10 E. tereticornis Smith parents tested at two sites was used to investigate the relationship of parental genetic variation to hybrid mean value (MV), specific hybridizing ability (SHA), and heterosis. Based on 184 polymorphic expressed sequence tag (EST) derived simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers, genetic distance (GD) between parents (GD_All) ranged from 0.293 to 0.783, averaging at 0.700. For tree height, breast-high diameter and wood density at age of 7.5 years, GD_All, GDs based on markers beyond 0.70 and 0.80 in polymorphism information content and GDs based on alleles within 0.10–0.90, 0.20–0.80, and 0.30–0.70 in allele frequency were not significantly correlated with MV, SHA, and the majority of heterosis types. GD based on effect-significant alleles was significantly correlated only with a few of traits or for certain site, while GDs based on effect-increasing (GD_IA) and effect-decreasing alleles (GD_DA) had significantly positive and negative correlations, respectively, with all the MV and SHA as well as across-site mid-parent heterosis. These results suggest the potential utility of GD_IA and GD_DA for molecular prediction of hybrid performance, SHA, and heterosis in Eucalyptus and may have implications for hybrid breeding in other plants.

Raw data for Chen S, Zhou C, He X, Weng Q, Li F, Li M, Guo Y, Gan S. 2020. Enhanced correlations of EST-SSR based genetic distance with hybrid performance, specific hybridizing ability and heterosis using effect-increasing and effect-decreasing alleles: a case study in Eucalyptus L'Hér.. Tree Genetics & Genomes, 16(1): 16. doi:10.1007/s11295-019-1410-1.

An Excel file was provided including five worksheets for: 1) 20 parental genotypes against 184 SSR markers, 2) mean value, specific hybridizing ability and heterosis, 3) Effect-increasing (IAs) and decreasing (DAs) alleles for the 20 parents in 7.5-year-old tree height across sites, at Changtai trial and at Yong'an trial, 4) Effect-increasing (IAs) and decreasing (DAs) alleles for the 20 parents in 7.5-year-old tree diameter across sites, at Changtai trial and at Yong'an trial, and 5) Effect-increasing (IAs) and decreasing (DAs) alleles for the 20 parents in 7.5-year-old wood density across sites, at Changtai trial and at Yong'an trial.