Impact of Genetic Groups and Herd-Year-Season Fixed/Random on Genetic Parameter Estimates from Large Data Sets in Pigs

WOLF, J. & WOLFOVÁ, M. Impact of Genetic Groups and Herd-Year-Season Fixed/Random on Genetic Parameter Estimates from Large Data Sets in Pigs. Research in Pig Breeding, 2012, roč. 6, č. 2, s. 88-96.{INTLINK}
WOLF, Jochen and WOLFOVÁ, Marie. Impact of Genetic Groups and Herd-Year-Season Fixed/Random on Genetic Parameter Estimates from Large Data Sets in Pigs. Research in Pig Breeding, 2012, vol. 6(2), p. 88-96. ISSN 1802-7547.
Year2012
CathegoryPublication in specialized journals
Internal link12197.pdf
Abstract

Four-trait animal models were used to estimate genetic parameters for lean meat percentage, average daily gain from birth to the end of the test, number of piglets born alive in the first litter and number of piglets born alive in the second and subsequent litters for Czech Large White and Czech Landrace pigs. The models differed by considering herd-year-season as random or fixed and by the presence or absence of genetic group effects. Similar heritabilities and genetic correlations between traits were estimated for all four variants of models giving no reason for preferring one of these variants. However, results from the literature show that treating herd-year-season as fixed effect in the genetic evaluation should be desirable because qualitative genetic material has been more and more concentrated in certain herds. The use of genetic groups in the models seems to be problematic and is probably not really necessary.