We present a detailed analysis of linkage disequilibrium (LD) in the physical and genetic context of the barley gene Hv-eIF4E, which confers resistance to the barley yellow mosaic virus (BYMV) complex. Eightythree SNPs distributed over 132 kb of Hv-eIF4E and six additional fragments genetically mapped to its flanking region were used to derive haplotypes from 131 accessions. Three haplogroups were recognized, discriminating between the alleles rym4 and rym5, which each encode for a spectrum of resistance to BYMV. With increasing map distance, haplotypes of susceptible genotypes displayed diverse patterns driven mainly by recombination, whereas haplotype diversity within the subgroups of resistant genotypes was limited. We conclude that the breakdown of LD within 1 cM of the resistance gene was generated mainly by susceptible genotypes. Despite the LD decay, a significant association between haplotype and resistance to BYMV was detected up to a distance of 5.5 cM from the resistance gene. The LD pattern and the haplotype structure of the target chromosomal region are the result of interplay between low recombination and recent breeding history.T HE ever-increasing availability of nucleotide sequence, and the concomitant improvement that this brings to our understanding of the organization of complex crop plant genomes, has created the opportunity to identify trait-related genes and to analyze their allelic diversity. The association between phenotype and genotype in diverse populations represents a powerful approach, but the applicability and design of such analyses depend critically on the extent and pattern of linkage disequilibrium (LD) present in the study population. Cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. vulgare) has many of the hallmarks known to be associated with a high level of LD. Its effective recombination rate is dramatically reduced by its predominantly inbreeding habit, with an estimated outcrossing rate of 5% in winter barley and ,0.5% in spring barley (Giles et al. 1974;Doll 1987;Abdel-Ghani et al. 2005). Domestication and intensive selection have introduced major bottlenecks in genetic variation, and these are thought to be largely responsible for the perceived narrowness of the modern gene pool (Badr et al. 2000;Russell et al. 2000;Matus and Hayes 2002). LD in modern spring barley, as estimated from a whole-genome survey, extends over distances of at least 10 cM, indicative of an extensive conservation of the genetic identity of barley chromosomes (Kraakman et al. 2004). However, estimates of genomewide LD conceal localized variation, which, as has been shown for a number of species, can be substantial and independent of the mating system (Gupta et al. 2005). In the self-pollinating species Arabidopsis thaliana LD varies from ,10 kb in global (Tian et al. 2002) to 50-250 kb in local populations (Nordborg et al. , 2005Aranzana et al. 2005). Within a given set of maize (an outbreeding species) accessions, the extent of LD has been documented to vary widely around different genes and chr...