QMSim: a large-scale genome simulator for livestock

Abstract

SUMMARY: QMSim was designed to simulate large-scale genotyping data in multiple and complex livestock pedigrees. The simulation is basically carried out in two steps. In the first step, a historical population is simulated to establish mutation-drift equilibrium, and in the second step, recent population structures are generated, which can be very complex. A wide variety of genome architectures, ranging from infinitesimal model to single-locus model, can be simulated. The program is efficient in terms of computing time and memory requirements. AVAILABILITY: Executable versions of QMSim for Windows and Linux are freely available at http://www.aps.uoguelph.ca/~msargol/qmsim/.