Genome‐wide association study of soybean (Glycine Max) phosphorus deficiency tolerance during the seedling stage.

Phosphorus (P) is essential for plant growth, especially for soybean. P deficiency results in a severe decline of soybean productivity worldwide. Biomass is an important index to measure the tolerance of plants to low P. In this study, SNPs significantly associated with four P deficiency tolerance‐related traits were identified by genome‐wide association study (GWAS) using a natural population comprised of 272 soybean accessions from a wide geographic range and a high‐density NJAU 355K SoySNP array. As a result, four SNPs associated with RPDW (ratio of root dry weight under normal P condition and low P condition) with similar positions on chromosome 18 were identified and explained 24.71% to 30.89% of the phenotypic variation. One of these SNPs was identified in two environments and with two traits. Two genes were chosen as candidate genes responding to low P stress, one of which was annotated as a copper transporter and the other was annotated as a lipid transfer protein. In brief, these findings will be helpful for improving P efficiency and the marker‐assisted selection breeding in soybean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]