A method for partitioning trends in genetic mean and variance to understand breeding practices

Abstract

Quantifying the sources of genetic change is essential for optimising breeding programmes. However, breeding programmes are often complex because many breeding groups are subject to different breeding actions. Understanding the contribution of these groups to changes in genetic mean and variance is essential to understanding genetic change in breeding programmes. Here we extend the previously developed method for analysing the contribution of groups to changes in genetic mean to analysing changes in genetic variance. We, expectedly, show that the contribution of females and males to change in genetic variance can differ and are not independent, indicating we should not look at the contributions in isolation.