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Maternal effects and selection response with an application to sheep data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2010

J. P. Hanrahan
J. P. Hanrahan
Affiliation:
The Agricultural Institute, Belclare, Tuam, Co. Galway, Ireland
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Summary

The implications of genetic variation in maternal performance for the relative merits of common selection strategies have been investigated. If the accuracy of progeny testing is computed without taking maternal effects into account, the estimate is biased upward. This bias increases as the correlation between direct and maternal genetic effects decreases from positive to negative values. The relative efficiency of progeny and performance test selection is a function of the heritability of direct and maternal genetic effects and the correlation between them. In terms of genetic gain per unit time, progeny testing is almost always less efficient than performance testing. For sire line improvement progeny testing is relatively more useful but is still likely to be less efficient than performance test selection unless there is a negative correlation between direct and maternal genetic effects or the correlation between purebred and crossbred direct genetic effects is very low or negative.

Analysis of body weight at 6 and 14 weeks of age in Galway sheep has shown that maternal genetic effects are an important source of variation in this population.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Production , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , June 1976, pp. 359 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © British Society of Animal Science 1976

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References

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