Genetic evaluation with known variance components in sommer

library(sommer)
library(Matrix)
set.seed(4)

Overview

Routine genetic evaluations predict breeding values for very large populations with variance components that are considered known. They were estimated earlier, usually by REML on a smaller but representative subset of the data. The expensive part is then not variance-component estimation but solving the mixed-model equations (MME)

$C\hat{x} = r, \qquad C = \begin{bmatrix} X^\top R^{-1}X & X^\top R^{-1}Z \\ Z^\top R^{-1}X & Z^\top R^{-1}Z + G_0^{-1}\otimes A^{-1}\end{bmatrix}, \qquad r = \begin{bmatrix} X^\top R^{-1}y \\ Z^\top R^{-1}y \end{bmatrix},$

once, for possibly millions of animals.

mmes(..., solveOnly=TRUE) does exactly that. It uses the same formula interface as a REML fit but never estimates variances, never computes a likelihood, and never assembles $C$ . Instead, it iterates on the data with a preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCG):

each product $Cv$ is computed as $W^\top R^{-1}(Wv)$ plus the prior term $\operatorname{vec}(A^{-1}U G_0^{-1})$ , where $W=[X\;Z]$ and $U$ holds the coefficients of $v$ as levels $\times$ traits;
$R^{-1}$ is applied block by block (one block per record, or per animal for multi-trait residuals);
the preconditioner is block-Jacobi: one dense block for the fixed effects and one $q\times q$ block per animal coupling its $q$ traits.

Memory and time per iteration are therefore linear in the number of records, pedigree entries, and animals.

This vignette walks through the usual two-step workflow:

simulate a two-trait population with a pedigree;
estimate $G_0$ and $R_0$ by REML on a small subset of herds;
use those estimates to evaluate the whole population, including young animals without records.

Simulated population

Pedigree and relationship inverse

We simulate six discrete generations of 3000 animals each, with 60 sires and 1500 dams used per generation. Animals of the last generation are young selection candidates without records of their own.

simulate_pedigree <- function(nGen, perGen, nSires){
  n <- nGen * perGen
  gen <- rep(seq_len(nGen), each=perGen)
  male <- rep(c(TRUE, FALSE), length.out=n)
  sire <- dam <- rep(NA_integer_, n)
  for(g in 2:nGen){
    prev <- which(gen == g - 1L)
    cur <- which(gen == g)
    sires <- sample(prev[male[prev]], nSires)
    sire[cur] <- sample(sires, length(cur), replace=TRUE)
    dam[cur] <- sample(prev[!male[prev]], length(cur), replace=TRUE)
  }
  data.frame(index=seq_len(n), id=paste0("A", seq_len(n)), sire=sire, dam=dam,
             gen=gen)
}

ped <- simulate_pedigree(nGen=6, perGen=3000, nSires=60)
head(ped[ped$gen == 2, ])

##      index    id sire  dam gen
## 3001  3001 A3001  399 1774   2
## 3002  3002 A3002 2677 2062   2
## 3003  3003 A3003 1637 2734   2
## 3004  3004 A3004  255 2080   2
## 3005  3005 A3005 1783 1008   2
## 3006  3006 A3006  399 2556   2

The inverse of the numerator relationship matrix follows Henderson’s rules, $A^{-1} = T^\top D^{-1} T$ , where $T = I - P$ and $P$ holds $0.5$ for each known parent. To keep the code short, the within-family variances in $D$ ignore inbreeding, which is negligible over six generations in a population of this size. The breeding values below are simulated from the same model. In practice, $A^{-1}$ would come from a pedigree package, and a 3-column (row, column, value) table is also accepted as Gu.

pedigree_ainv <- function(ped){
  n <- nrow(ped)
  hasSire <- !is.na(ped$sire)
  hasDam <- !is.na(ped$dam)
  P <- sparseMatrix(i=c(which(hasSire), which(hasDam)),
                    j=c(ped$sire[hasSire], ped$dam[hasDam]),
                    x=0.5, dims=c(n, n))
  Tm <- Diagonal(n) - P
  dinv <- 1 / (1 - 0.25 * (hasSire + hasDam))
  Ainv <- forceSymmetric(crossprod(Tm, Diagonal(x=dinv) %*% Tm))
  dimnames(Ainv) <- list(ped$id, ped$id)
  attr(Ainv, "inverse") <- TRUE
  Ainv
}

Breeding values and phenotypes

Two traits, think of weaning weight and yearling weight, have the following genetic ( $G_0$ ) and residual ( $R_0$ ) covariance matrices:

G0 <- matrix(c(0.30, 0.23,
               0.23, 0.50), 2, dimnames=list(c("y1","y2"), c("y1","y2")))
R0 <- matrix(c(0.70, 0.24,
               0.24, 0.90), 2, dimnames=list(c("y1","y2"), c("y1","y2")))
cov2cor(G0)[1, 2]   # genetic correlation

## [1] 0.5938574

diag(G0) / (diag(G0) + diag(R0))   # heritabilities

##        y1        y2 
## 0.3000000 0.3571429

Breeding values are the parent average plus a Mendelian sampling term, simulated generation by generation. Records of generations 1 to 5 belong to 300 herds (contemporary groups), whose effects are fixed in the model. The second trait is missing for 30% of the animals, as happens when animals leave the herd before the second measurement.

n <- nrow(ped)
bv <- matrix(0, n, 2, dimnames=list(ped$id, c("y1", "y2")))
dvar <- 1 - 0.25 * ((!is.na(ped$sire)) + (!is.na(ped$dam)))
mendelian <- matrix(rnorm(n * 2), n) %*% chol(G0)
for(g in sort(unique(ped$gen))){
  cur <- which(ped$gen == g)
  pa <- if(g == 1) 0 else 0.5 * (bv[ped$sire[cur], ] + bv[ped$dam[cur], ])
  bv[cur, ] <- pa + sqrt(dvar[cur]) * mendelian[cur, ]
}

recorded <- ped[ped$gen < 6, ]
nHerd <- 300
recorded$herd <- factor(sample(seq_len(nHerd), nrow(recorded), replace=TRUE))
herdEffect <- matrix(rnorm(nHerd * 2, sd=c(1, 1.5)), nHerd, byrow=TRUE)
errors <- matrix(rnorm(nrow(recorded) * 2), ncol=2) %*% chol(R0)
recorded$y1 <- 10 + herdEffect[recorded$herd, 1] + bv[recorded$index, 1] + errors[, 1]
recorded$y2 <- 20 + herdEffect[recorded$herd, 2] + bv[recorded$index, 2] + errors[, 2]
recorded$y2[sample(nrow(recorded), round(0.3 * nrow(recorded)))] <- NA
dim(recorded)

## [1] 15000     8

Multi-trait models in mmes() use the long format. stackTraits() creates one row per animal and trait, plus a record key that tells the residual structure which records belong to the same animal. Rows with missing trait values are dropped by mmes() automatically.

pheno <- recorded[, c("id", "herd", "gen", "y1", "y2")]
long <- stackTraits(pheno, traits=c("y1", "y2"))
head(long)

##   id herd gen record trait     value
## 1 A1  291   1     r1    y1  9.038739
## 2 A2   30   1     r2    y1 11.272932
## 3 A3   30   1     r3    y1  9.065007
## 4 A4  156   1     r4    y1 10.776899
## 5 A5  140   1     r5    y1 11.993836
## 6 A6  123   1     r6    y1  7.665852

Step 1: REML on a subset of herds

Variance components are estimated on 60 of the 300 herds (about 20% of the records). The relationship inverse is built from the sub-pedigree of those animals and all their ancestors, so the REML problem stays small.

trace_pedigree <- function(ped, index){
  keep <- rep(FALSE, nrow(ped))
  todo <- index
  while(length(todo)){
    keep[todo] <- TRUE
    parents <- c(ped$sire[todo], ped$dam[todo])
    todo <- unique(parents[!is.na(parents) & !keep[parents]])
  }
  sub <- ped[keep, ]
  sub$sire <- match(sub$sire, sub$index)
  sub$dam <- match(sub$dam, sub$index)
  sub
}

pilotHerds <- levels(long$herd)[1:60]
pilot <- droplevels(long[long$herd %in% pilotHerds, ])
pilotPed <- trace_pedigree(ped, recorded$index[recorded$herd %in% pilotHerds])
c(records=nrow(pilot), animals=length(unique(pilot$id)), pedigree=nrow(pilotPed))

##  records  animals pedigree 
##     5918     2959     5496

The model has trait-specific herd effects, an unstructured genetic covariance between traits with the relationship inverse as Gu, and an unstructured residual covariance between the two records of the same animal.

Ainv <- pedigree_ainv(pilotPed)
timeReml <- system.time(
  reml <- mmes(value ~ trait + trait:herd,
               random = ~ vsm(usm(trait), ism(id), Gu=Ainv),
               rcov = ~ vsm(usm(trait), ism(record)),
               data=pilot, verbose=FALSE)
)

## Adding 2537 additional Gu levels to the main-effect model matrix: A10, A12, A18, A20, A22, A26, A28, A32, A42, A50 ...

## Solver selected: ldlt

timeReml[["elapsed"]]

## [1] 8.395

The estimated covariance matrices are close to the simulated ones, given the size of the pilot data:

G0hat <- covmatrix_mmes(reml, 1)
R0hat <- covmatrix_mmes(reml, 2)
round(G0hat$covariance, 3)

##       y1    y2
## y1 0.355 0.282
## y2 0.282 0.508

round(G0hat$covariance.se, 3)

##       y1    y2
## y1 0.051 0.051
## y2 0.051 0.083

round(R0hat$covariance, 3)

##       y1    y2
## y1 0.684 0.257
## y2 0.257 0.913

Step 2: evaluation of the whole population

The whole population is now evaluated with these variance components. The model formula is unchanged; only the data and the relationship inverse change. Because the relationship inverse is again called Ainv, the term labels match those of reml, and the fitted object can be passed directly as covPar. Its final working-scale estimates are used exactly.

Ainv <- pedigree_ainv(ped)
timeEval <- system.time(
  ebv <- mmes(value ~ trait + trait:herd,
              random = ~ vsm(usm(trait), ism(id), Gu=Ainv),
              rcov = ~ vsm(usm(trait), ism(record)),
              data=long, solveOnly=TRUE, covPar=reml, verbose=FALSE)
)

## Adding 3000 additional Gu levels to the main-effect model matrix: A15001, A15002, A15003, A15004, A15005, A15006, A15007, A15008, A15009, A15010 ...

## Engine selected: known-covariance PCG (solveOnly=TRUE)

timeEval[["elapsed"]]

## [1] 0.233

ebv

## Known-covariance mixed-model solution (mmes, solveOnly=TRUE)
## Equations: 36600  fixed: 600  random: 36000  records: 25500 
## PCG converged in 82 iterations; relative residual 9.81e-09 
## Variance parameters used:
##                                 term                parameter     value
##  vsm(usm(trait), ism(id), Gu = Ainv)                   sigma2 0.3552469
##  vsm(usm(trait), ism(id), Gu = Ainv)   usm(trait):chol[y2,y1] 0.7947331
##  vsm(usm(trait), ism(id), Gu = Ainv) usm(trait):chol_diag[y2] 0.8939969
##         vsm(usm(trait), ism(record))                   sigma2 0.6839755
##         vsm(usm(trait), ism(record))   usm(trait):chol[y2,y1] 0.3764455
##         vsm(usm(trait), ism(record)) usm(trait):chol_diag[y2] 1.0920492

The object of class mmesSolve contains the solutions (b, u, bu, uList), fitted values and residuals, the covariance matrices that were used (theta), the parameters that were used in natural scale (vcParams), and the solver diagnostics (pcg). Animals in Gu without records, here all of generation 6, are added automatically and receive pedigree-based predictions.

ebv$pcg[c("iterations", "relres", "converged", "setupSeconds", "solveSeconds")]

## $iterations
## [1] 82
## 
## $relres
## [1] 9.811506e-09
## 
## $converged
## [1] TRUE
## 
## $setupSeconds
## [1] 0.0186952
## 
## $solveSeconds
## [1] 0.09254899

plot(log10(ebv$pcg$history), type="l", xlab="PCG iteration",
     ylab="log10 relative residual")
abline(h=log10(1e-8), lty=2)

Accuracy of the predicted breeding values

The correlation between predicted and true breeding values measures the realized accuracy. Animals with records are predicted more accurately than the young candidates, whose predictions rely on parent averages only. The second trait benefits from the genetic correlation with the first, which is recorded for every animal.

u <- ebv$uList[[1]][ped$id, ]
accuracy <- function(rows) diag(cor(u[rows, ], bv[rows, ]))
rbind(recorded = accuracy(ped$gen < 6),
      candidates = accuracy(ped$gen == 6))

##                   y1        y2
## recorded   0.7061707 0.6935276
## candidates 0.4958470 0.4984512

Selection decisions use the predicted breeding values of the candidates, e.g. with an index that weights both traits equally:

candidates <- ped$id[ped$gen == 6]
index <- u[candidates, "y1"] + u[candidates, "y2"]
top <- head(sort(index, decreasing=TRUE), 5)
data.frame(id=names(top), index=round(top, 3),
           trueIndex=round(rowSums(bv[names(top), ]), 3))

##            id index trueIndex
## A17351 A17351 1.614     0.813
## A16532 A16532 1.516     2.407
## A16176 A16176 1.389     0.738
## A15992 A15992 1.384     0.050
## A15403 A15403 1.382     1.287

Other ways to give the variance components

covPar accepts other inputs besides a fitted object:

a list of covariance matrices, one per term in formula order (random terms, then the residual), for terms built from ism(), dsm() and usm(). This is the natural input when $G_0$ and $R_0$ come from another program or from the literature. Elements may also be named by term label;
a list of natural-scale parameter vectors, as in fit$covPar;
a data frame with columns term, parameter and value, such as ebv$vcParams.

Here we use the true matrices. The predictions are almost identical to those obtained with the pilot estimates, so estimating the variances on 20% of the data costs little accuracy:

ebvTrue <- mmes(value ~ trait + trait:herd,
                random = ~ vsm(usm(trait), ism(id), Gu=Ainv),
                rcov = ~ vsm(usm(trait), ism(record)),
                data=long, solveOnly=TRUE, covPar=list(G0, R0), verbose=FALSE)

## Adding 3000 additional Gu levels to the main-effect model matrix: A15001, A15002, A15003, A15004, A15005, A15006, A15007, A15008, A15009, A15010 ...

## Engine selected: known-covariance PCG (solveOnly=TRUE)

uTrue <- ebvTrue$uList[[1]][ped$id, ]
diag(cor(u, uTrue))

##        y1        y2 
## 0.9987345 0.9984394

diag(cor(uTrue[ped$gen == 6, ], bv[ped$gen == 6, ]))

##        y1        y2 
## 0.4940664 0.4970278

ebvTrue$vcParams[, c("term", "parameter", "value")]

##                                  term                parameter     value
## 1 vsm(usm(trait), ism(id), Gu = Ainv)                   sigma2 0.3000000
## 2 vsm(usm(trait), ism(id), Gu = Ainv)   usm(trait):chol[y2,y1] 0.7666667
## 3 vsm(usm(trait), ism(id), Gu = Ainv) usm(trait):chol_diag[y2] 1.0386958
## 4        vsm(usm(trait), ism(record))                   sigma2 0.7000000
## 5        vsm(usm(trait), ism(record))   usm(trait):chol[y2,y1] 0.3428571
## 6        vsm(usm(trait), ism(record)) usm(trait):chol_diag[y2] 1.0808160

For a single-trait evaluation, the known variances can also be written directly in the formula and fixed, in which case covPar is not needed:

single <- mmes(y1 ~ herd,
               random = ~ vsm(ism(id), Gu=Ainv, sigma2=0.30, fixedSigma2=TRUE),
               rcov = ~ vsm(ism(units), sigma2=0.70, fixedSigma2=TRUE),
               data=pheno, solveOnly=TRUE, verbose=FALSE)

## Adding 3000 additional Gu levels to the main-effect model matrix: A15001, A15002, A15003, A15004, A15005, A15006, A15007, A15008, A15009, A15010 ...

## Engine selected: known-covariance PCG (solveOnly=TRUE)

cor(single$uList[[1]][candidates, 1], bv[candidates, "y1"])

## [1] 0.4921655

Practical notes

Scale. On a simulated pedigree with one million animals (eight threads), the complete call took about 10 s for a single trait and 40 s for three correlated traits (3 million equations), most of it in R data preparation. Peak memory was 1.3 GB and 2.9 GB respectively. The number of threads follows the usual OpenMP settings (e.g. OMP_NUM_THREADS).
Convergence. pcgTol (default 1e-8) is the relative residual $\lVert r - C\hat{x}\rVert / \lVert r\rVert$ at which iterations stop, and pcgMaxIters limits the number of iterations (0 selects an automatic limit). A warning is issued if the tolerance is not reached. Rankings usually stabilize well before the default tolerance.
Matching the REML model. When covPar is a fitted object, the random and residual terms must be the same terms with the same labels; otherwise an error names the missing terms. Data, fixed effects and the levels of the relationship matrix may differ.
Scope. solveOnly=TRUE needs a Gaussian model and a residual covariance that is block diagonal with blocks of at most 10000 records. Weights must be a diagonal W. It does not return prediction error variances, reliabilities, or a likelihood; use a regular mmes() fit with computeCi for those on problems of moderate size.
Genomic information. Dense relationship precision matrices (genomic or single-step) can be supplied as Gu, but every iteration then costs as much as their number of nonzeros. For large genotyped populations, keep the inverse sparse, for example with the APY inverse from APY().

sommer development team

2026-10-06