Stochastic Simulation of Divergent Selection Experiment on a Gene-Phenotype Network: A Case Study of Shoot Branching in Plants

General Background Information on the specification of the Gene-Phenotype Network for Shoot Branching can be found in this publication: https://doi.org/10.1093/insilicoplants/diac006 The Shoot Branching Gene-Phenotype Network generates values for intermediate traits (`Auxin`,`Strigolactone`,`Cytokinin`,`Sucrose` & the `Integrator Signal`) and the end-point trait, `Time Bud Outgrowth`, that was under direct selection in the simuations. Starting from a common segregating population of genotypes (F2 - cycle1 folders), individuals were selected for either `Faster` or `Slower` Time to Bud Outgrowth for 30 selection cycles which created two seperate selection lines. The heritability, the ratio of genetic variance to error variance, of the `Time Bud Outgrowth` trait under direct selection was varied (`H2 = 1.0, 0.7, 0.5, 0.3`) to assess implications of the accuracy of selection decisison on the seleciton trajectories of the gene-phenotype network. The whole divergent selection experiments were replicated 5 times, resulting in 1,200 populations with genotype and phenotype data.