AlphaSimR: An R-Package for Breeding Program Simulations

Stochastic simulation is a powerful tool for modeling long-term performance in plant or animal breeding programs. This type of modeling can be used to optimize existing breeding programs, evaluate novel breeding schemes, and test strategies for deploying new technology. Despite this potential, stochastic simulations are rarely, if ever, used to model many breeding programs. This is in part due to the difficulty in running these types of simulations. To make this task easier, AlphaSimR has been designed as a package for the R software environment. AlphaSimR provides its users with functions that match common operations undertaken in a breeding program, such as crossing and selection, so that users can build simulations by writing short scripts. This process of building simulations is relatively easy, highly intuitive, and very flexible. AlphaSimR has also been specifically designed and optimized for large scale simulations, with it easily handling simulations involving millions of individuals. This talk will provide a general overview of AlphaSimR and example of how the software has been used to model large breeding programs and teach students the basics of quantitative genetics.