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Genetic parameter estimates for gastrointestinal nematode parasite resistance and maternal efficiency indicator traits in Santa Inês breed
Author(s) -
Berton Mariana P.,
Silva Rosiane P.,
Carvalho Felipe E.,
Chiaia Hermenegildo Lucas Justino,
Oliveira Priscila S.,
Eler Joanir P.,
Banchero Georgget,
Ferraz José B. S.,
Baldi Fernando
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of animal breeding and genetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.689
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1439-0388
pISSN - 0931-2668
DOI - 10.1111/jbg.12424
Subject(s) - biology , haemonchus contortus , breed , flock , population , parasite hosting , eggs per gram , nematode , veterinary medicine , zoology , helminths , ecology , demography , medicine , sociology , world wide web , computer science
Infection with Haemonchus contortus is the most economically important gastrointestinal nematode parasitosis and the most important cause of mortality in sheep production. The aim of this study was to estimate variance components of gastrointestinal parasite resistance traits, maternal efficiency (ME) and ewe adult weight (AW) in Santa Inês breed in tropical conditions. The phenotypic records were collected from 700 animals, belonging to four flocks located south‐east and north‐east in Brazil. The evaluated traits were as follows: degree of anaemia assessed using the FAMACHA chart (FMC), haematocrit (HCT), white blood cell (WBC), red blood cell (RBC), haemoglobin (HGB), platelets (PLT), faecal egg count (EPG log ), ME, metabolic maternal efficiency (MME), AW and metabolic ewe adult weight (MAW). From the 700 animals, 576 (82% of the evaluated population) were genotyped with the Ovine SNP12k BeadChip (Illumina, Inc.). Markers with unknown genomic position, located on sex chromosomes, monomorphic, with minor allele frequency <0.05, call rate <90% and with excess heterozygosity were excluded. The variance components were estimated using a single‐trait animal model with ssGBLUP procedure. The correlation between the parasite's resistance indicators and the ME suggested that selecting animals with both higher adult weight and ME will also favour the selection of animals with better resistance to gastrointestinal nematodes parasites, specially H. contortus . Therefore, since there are few or no studies with Santa Inês breed in this area, it is important to study those traits to better manage selection programs.