Date of Award

2021

Publisher

North Dakota State University

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Awarded

Master of Science (MS)

Program

Animal Sciences

Department

Animal Sciences

College

Agriculture, Food Systems and Natural Resources

Faculty Advisor

Hanna, Lauren

Description

Non-additive genetic effects are usually ignored in animal breeding programs due to data structure, computational limitations, and over-parameterization of the models. Non-additive genetic effects play an important role in the expression of complex traits in livestock species, such as longevity and stayability. Components of genetic variance for additive and non-additive genetic effects were estimated for longevity and stayability in U.S. Western ewes using pedigree relationship matrices. Litter size were also investigated for direct and maternal effects. For longevity, a larger proportion of phenotypic variance was explained by non-additive genetic effects than by additive effects for model A+D, indicating that including dominance genetic effects are important. Results suggest that inclusion of non-additive genetic effects in animal models is possible in estimating longevity and stayability and will improve selection accuracy and reduce overestimation of additive genetic effects.

Rights

NDSU policy 190.6.2

Rights Link

https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf

Author ORCID Identifier

0000-0003-1001-5233

Handle Identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/10365/32721

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