MDNN: memetic deep neural network for genomic prediction

Genomic prediction (GP) has made significant progress in the field of breeding. Traditional linear models perform well in handling simple traits but have limitations in extracting nonlinear features for complex traits. The introduction of deep learning (DL) techniques has provided a new approach to GP, especially suited for high-dimensional data processing and complex trait prediction. However, traditional DL models require manual design of the network architecture, which necessitates continuous experimentation and modification. In this paper, we propose a new framework, MDNN, that utilizes the memetic algorithm for neural architecture search and automatically optimizes the network architecture. Compared with the DNNGP, MDNN achieved a 36.49% improvement in the average Pearson correlation coefficient on the wheat599 dataset and a 12.28% improvement on the wheat2000 dataset.