===== Dealing with `clones' =====
In some instances we have clones, i.e. subjects which are genetically identical.
For instance, monozygotic twins are naturally occuring clones. If these individuals have different identity codes and the same parents, WOMBAT will simply treat them as ordinary full-sibs. Alternatively, if all members of the clone are given the same identity, records on all members of the clone are treated as if they were repeated observations for the same individual. That is not correct either - hence special action needs to be taken.
To model clones correctly, we need to fit the **same genetic** effects for all members of the clone, but allow for **different
environmental** effects for different individuals. WOMBAT has no in-built option to do this automatically, but can easily be tricked to do so:
* Give all members of the clone the same genetic identity.
* For data with repeated records per trait, assign a different code for permanent environmental effects to each clone member.
* WOMBAT requires the data file to be sorted according to traits within individual. However, it does not require identities to be in ascending or descending order -- the program simply checks for a change in identity to determine where the records for a new individual start. \\ Hence, the `trick' is to arrange the data file so that members of the same clone do **not** occur successively (while still keeping records taken on the same individual together and, for multivariate analyses, sorted in ascending trait number). This will cause WOMBAT to assign different residual effects to different individuals and thus model the genetic and environmental covariance structure correctly.
Example: Individuals "1","2" and "3" belong to a clone given
the identity "100", "4", "5" and "6" do not belong
to a clone
Trait Genetic_Code Record Individual
1 100 10 1
2 100 99 1
1 4 12 4
2 4 88 4
1 100 9 2
2 100 94 2
1 5 13 5
2 5 87 5
1 100 11 3
2 100 77 3
1 6 7 6
WOMBAT is likely to refuse running your analysis on grounds that there are too few "repeated" records per individual or that the data file is not sorted correctly. To override these `safety catches', you need to add the special option "clones", i.e. your parameter file should have a block
SPECIAL
CLONES
END SPECIAL
Alternatively, if animals are almost -- but not 100% -- identical, the inverse of the numerator relationship matrix can be constructed as described by Oikawa & Yasuda (2009) and fed into WOMBAT as a *.gin file.
@ARTICLE{kennedy89,
author = {Kennedy, B. W. and Schaeffer, L. R.},
pages = {1946--1955},
title = {Genetic evaluation under an animal model when identical genotypes are represented in a population},
journal = {J. Anim. Sci.},
volume = {67},
year = {1989}
}
@ARTICLE{oikawa2009,
author = {Oikawa, T. and Yasuda, K.},
title = {Inclusion of genetically identical animals to a numerator relationship matrix and modification of its inverse},
journal = {Genetics Selection Evolution},
volume = {41},
number = {1},
year = {2009},
pages = {25},
doi = {10.1186/1297-9686-41-25},
}