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Estimation of (co)variance components for birth weight in Nellore cattle using alternative data editing criteria
Author(s) -
Santos Correia Luiz Eduardo Cruz,
Silva Faria Ricardo António,
Oliveira Matheus Henrique Vargas,
Aspilcueta Borquis Rusbel Raúl,
Curi Rogério Abdallah,
Vasconcelos Silva Josineudson Augusto II
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
reproduction in domestic animals
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.546
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1439-0531
pISSN - 0936-6768
DOI - 10.1111/rda.13781
Subject(s) - heritability , variance components , zoology , statistics , beef cattle , birth weight , random effects model , trait , biology , estimation , mathematics , computer science , pregnancy , genetics , medicine , meta analysis , management , economics , programming language
The aim of this study was to estimate the (co)variance components and breeding values for birthweight (BW) in Nellore cattle by considering or not identical weights that exhibit a high frequency within the contemporary group (CG). A total of 175,258 BW records of Nellore cattle born between 2002 and 2018 were used. The CG was formed by farm, year of birth, sex and feeding regime at birth. CGs with more than 16% of identical BW values were eliminated, generating a data file called BWd. Another file was created without removing these animals (BWt). A mixed linear model was used for statistical analysis, which included fixed and random effects. In both data files analysed, single‐trait analysis was performed by Bayesian inference. The mean direct and maternal heritability for BW and the correlation between direct and maternal effects were 0.27, 0.07 and −0.07 for BWt, respectively, and 0.30, 0.093 and −0.07 for BWd. This method should affect the estimation of genetic merits of animals for BW, providing greater safety in the choice of sires.