Comparative evaluation of different animal models for genetic analysis of body weight traits in an organized Corriedale sheep population

Ahmad, Sheikh Firdous; Khan, Nusrat Nabi; Ganai, Nazir Ahmad; Shanaz, Syed; Majid, Ruksana; Ahmad, Tavsief; Bukhari, Saba; Shabir, Mir

doi:10.1016/j.smallrumres.2022.106657

Cited by 4 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…This model represents direct and maternal additive genetic effects, including covariance between them. In agreement with previous findings, the permanent maternal environment did not significantly affect the preweaning growth traits [ 46 , 47 ]. The animal model only including direct additive genetic effect was the best equation for WT180, WT270, and WT365.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 93%

Environmental Effects and Genetic Parameters for Growth Traits of Lohi Sheep

Sharif

Ali

Dawood

et al. 2022

Animals

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Estimating genetic parameters for growth traits is crucial to plan breeding strategies for improving meat production in indigenous sheep breeds. The study first tested the effects of environmental and maternal effects on five growth traits, including birth weight (BWT), weight at 120 days (WT120), weight at 180 days (WT180), weight at 270 days (WT270) and weight at 365 days of age (WT365) and then estimated genetic parameters for these traits using data obtained in 1215 Lohi sheep. The effects of factors, including year (YOB), season (SOB) and type of birth (TOB), age of dam (AOD) and sex on growth traits of Lohi sheep, were examined using analysis of variance (ANOVA) in R software. Sex, TOB and YOB significantly affected all studied traits. The estimates of direct and maternal heritability for BWT and WT120 were 0.15 ± 0.08 and 0.20 ± 0.06, and 0.45 ± 0.16, 0.21 ± 0.08, respectively. The direct heritability estimates for WT180, WT270 and WT365 were 0.20 ± 0.07, 0.21 ± 0.07 and 0.19 ± 0.08, respectively. Due to the high heritability estimate obtained for WT120 compared to other studied traits, and its strong genetic correlation (>0.9) with post-weaning growth traits, it is recommended that selection must be practiced on WT120 to improve the growth performance of Lohi sheep. The results could be used for the development of genetic/genomic selection programs aiming to improve the production performance of the Lohi sheep.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 93%

Environmental Effects and Genetic Parameters for Growth Traits of Lohi Sheep

Sharif

Ali

Dawood

et al. 2022

Animals

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“…In the model that included the direct-maternal genetic relationship, the estimated covariance between additive direct and maternal additive genetic components was negative for all postweaning traits, and similar findings have been reported in Malapura, Nellore, and Corriedale sheep [ 6 , 12 ]. If animals are selected on the basis of direct additive genetic effects, the antagonistic correlation between additive and maternal additive components may degrade their maternal contribution.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

“…It was comparable with reported findings in various tropical sheep breeds [ 11 , 21 – 23 ]. However, this estimate was comparatively higher than those estimated in Malapura [ 6 ], Nilagiri [ 7 ], Corriedale [ 12 ], Kermani [ 24 ], Chokla [ 25 ], and Nellore [ 26 ] lambs. Higher heritability in Mecheri sheep was previously reported [ 27 ], in a study in which maternal effects evaluation was absent.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 58%

“…In addition to direct selection, the identification of genetic correlations between economically significant growth factors may enable simultaneous improvement of associated traits. Frequency-based methods like restricted maximum likelihood (REML) are often used with a large number of observations to estimate high-precision covariance components and genetic correlations for performance traits in different sheep breeds [ 5 , 11 , 12 ]. However, Bayesian-based Gibbs sampling is a (co)variance component estimation approach that has several practical advantages over the REML method.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Development of selection strategies for genetic improvement in production traits of Mecheri sheep based on a Bayesian multi trait evaluation

Balasundaram,

Muralidharan,

Murali

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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The progression of genetic selection techniques to enhance farm animal performance traits is guided by the present level of genetic variation and maternal impact in each trait, as well as the genetic association between traits. This study was conducted on a population of Mecheri sheep maintained from 1980 to 2018 at Mecheri Sheep Research Station, Pottaneri, India, to determine variance and covariance components, as well as genetic parameters for various production performance traits. A total of 2616 lambs, produced by 1044 dams and 226 sires, were examined in the study and the production traits of Mecheri sheep assessed include birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW), six-month weight (SMW), nine-month weight (NMW), and yearling weight (YW). The Bayesian approach, using the Gibbs sampler, analyzed six animal models with different combinations of additive direct and maternal additive effects. Direct genetics, maternal genetics, and residual effects models were the major contributors to total phenotypic variation for all the production traits studied. Direct heritability estimates of birth weight, WW, SMW, NMW, and YW were 0.25, 0.20, 0.12, 0.14, and 0.13, respectively. The maternal heritability estimated for BW, WW, SMW, NMW, and YW were 0.17, 0.10, 0.12, 0.14, and 0.14, respectively. The maternal effects had a major impact on the pre-weaning production traits. The genetic correlations estimated between different pairs of production traits studied ranged from 0.19 to 0.93. The body weight at birth exhibited a higher genetic relationship with weaning weight than post-weaning growth characteristics, and the genetic correlation between weaning weight and post-weaning attributes was moderate to high (0.52 to 0.72). Based on the additive genetic variance in weaning weight and the correlation estimates of weaning weight with post-weaning traits, weaning weight was proposed as a selection criterion for improving growth traits in Mecheri sheep.

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“…In addition to direct selection, identification of genetic correlations between economically significant growth factors may enable simultaneous improvement of associated traits. Frequency-based methods like restricted maximum likelihood (REML) is often used with a large number of observations to estimate high precision covariance components and genetic correlations for performance traits in different sheep breeds [5,11,12]. However, Bayesian-based Gibbs sampling is a (co)variance component estimation approach that has several practical advantages over the REML method.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of selection strategies for genetic improvement in production traits of Mecheri sheep based on a Bayesian multi trait evaluation

Balasundaram¹,

Muralidharan²,

Muthialu³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The progression of genetic selection techniques to enhance farm animal performance traits is guided by the present level of genetic variation and maternal impact in each trait, as well as the genetic association between traits. This study was conducted on a population of Mecheri sheep maintained from 1980 to 2018 at Mecheri Sheep Research Station, Pottaneri, India, to determine variance and covariance components, as well as genetic parameters for various production performance traits. The production traits of Mecheri sheep assessed include: birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW), six-month weight (SMW), nine-month weight (NMW) and yearling weight (YW). The Bayesian approach using the Gibbs sampler analyzed six animal models with different combinations of additive direct and maternal additive effects was used. Direct genetics, maternal genetics and residual effects models were the major significantly contributors to total phenotypic variation for all the production traits studied. Direct heritability estimates of birth weight, WW, SMW, NMW and YW were 0.25, 0.20, 0.12, 0.14 and 0.13, respectively. The maternal heritability estimated for BW, WW, SMW, NMW and YW were 0.17, 0.10, 0.12, 0.14 and 0.14, respectively. The maternal effects had a major impact on the pre-weaning production traits. The genetic correlations estimated between different pairs of production traits studied ranged from 0.19 to 0.93. The body weight at birth exhibited higher genetic relationship with weaning weight than post-weaning growth characteristics, and the genetic correlation between weaning weight and post-weaning attributes was moderate to high (0.52 to 0.72). Based on the additive genetic variance in weaning weight and the correlation estimates of weaning weight with post-weaning traits, the weaning weight was proposed as a selection criterion for improving growth traits in Mecheri sheep.

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Comparative evaluation of different animal models for genetic analysis of body weight traits in an organized Corriedale sheep population

Cited by 4 publications

References 24 publications

Environmental Effects and Genetic Parameters for Growth Traits of Lohi Sheep

Environmental Effects and Genetic Parameters for Growth Traits of Lohi Sheep

Development of selection strategies for genetic improvement in production traits of Mecheri sheep based on a Bayesian multi trait evaluation

Development of selection strategies for genetic improvement in production traits of Mecheri sheep based on a Bayesian multi trait evaluation

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