Relationship Between Individual Herd-Heritability Estimates and Sire Misidentification Rate

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to estimate heritabilities within herds participating in Dairy Herd Improvement and determine the relationship of the individual herd heritability with sire misidentification rate. Individual herd heritabilities for milk, fat, and protein yield and somatic cell score (SCS) were calculated with daughter-dam regression and daughter-sire predicted transmitting ability (PTA) regression using 4,712,166 records from 16,336 herds available for August 2000 evaluations and 7,084,953 records from 20,920 herds available for August 2006 evaluations. Herd heritabilities were estimated using regression models that included fixed breed, age within parity, herd-year-season of calving, dam records nested within state, sire PTA within state, and an interaction between sire PTA and herd variance; random regression coefficients were dam records within herd and sire PTA within herd. Average daughter-dam herd heritability estimates ranged from 0.21 (SCS in 2000) to 0.73 (protein percentage in 2006), whereas daughter-sire herd heritability ranged from 0.10 (SCS in 2000) to 0.42 (protein percentage in 2006). Verification of sire identification with DNA marker analysis was provided by Accelerated Genetics and Alta Genetics Inc. Daughter-sire herd heritability was more strongly correlated with sire misidentification rate than daughter-dam herd heritability. The correlation between the first principal component for all measures of herd heritability and sire misidentification rate was -0.38 (176 herds) and -0.50 (230 herds) in 2000 and 2006, respectively. Herd heritability can be estimated with simple regression techniques for several thousand herds simultaneously. The herd heritability estimates were correlated negatively with sire misidentification rates and could be used to identify herds that provide inaccurate data for progeny testing.

BREEDING AND GENETICS SYMPOSIUM: Really big data: Processing and analysis of very large data sets1

“…This is an appealing concept because it is simple to implement, but does not provide metrics that can be used to objectively compare data collection methods. Research by Dechow et al (2008) indicates that within-herd heritability estimates may be useful as indicators of data quality, and their calculation is relatively straightforward. Widespread use of RFID tags and electronic readers help to improve quality by reducing errors in identification.…”

Short Communication: Variance Estimates Among Herds Stratified by Individual Herd Heritability

“…Data quality issues, such as sire misidentification rate, would also be expected to impact herd heritability estimates regardless of the herd's genetic variance. Individual herd heritabilities were generated for 20,902 herds and were merged with sire-misidentification rate as determined by DNA maker analysis for a subset of 230 herds (Dechow et al, 2008). The correlation between sire misidentification rate and a principal component for all measures of herd heritability was −0.50.…”

“…Individual herd heritabilities for 20,902 herds were estimated (Dechow et al, 2008). Briefly, the model used to generate individual herd heritabilities in ASREML (Gilmour et al, 2006) was…”

“…It is likely that the higher heritability estimates observed for P95 are due, in part, to lower sire misidentification rates. Dechow et al (2008) reported a correlation of −0.50 between sire misidentification rate in 230 herds and a principal component for 12 measures of herd heritability. If the level of parent misidentification in P5 was higher than in P95, the estimate of genetic variance would be expected to be lower in P5 even if true genetic variance was not different.…”

Türkiye Yerli Sığır Irklarının Mikrosatellit Belirteçler ile Genetik Karakterizasyonu: Kimliklendirme Çalışmalarında Kullanılabilirliği

“…Due to their high polymorphism and technical ease including suitability for PCR technology and capillary electrophoresis, microsatellites are widely preferred in the paternity testing efforts of various mammalian species [3] . Correct determination of genetic relationships among animal populations has critical importance for development of selection programs [3] , generation of pedigree structures [4] , estimation of heritability [5,6] , and breeding values [7] . Significantly higher rates of paternity misidentification were reported even in the countries where herd records are performed with great care [3,5,8] .…”