nadiv: an R package to create relatedness matrices for estimating non-additive genetic variances in animal models

Abstract

1. The Non-Additive InVerses (nadiv) R software package contains functions to create and use non-additive genetic relationship matrices in the animal model of quantitative genetics.

2. This study discusses the concepts relevant to non-additive genetic effects and introduces the package.

3. nadiv includes functions to create the inverse of the dominance and epistatic relatedness matrices from a pedigree, which are required for estimating these genetic variances in an animal model. The study focuses on three widely used software programs in ecology and in evolutionary biology (ASReml, MCMCglmm and WOMBAT) and how nadiv can be used in conjunction with each. Simple tutorials are provided in the Supporting Information.