Reaction norms models in the adjusted weight at 550 days of age for Polled Nellore cattle in Northeast Brazil

The objective of this study was to evaluate the genotype-environment interaction (GEI) in the body weight adjusted to 550 days of age (W550) of Polled Nellore cattle raised in Northeastern Brazil using reaction norms (RN) models. Hierarchical RN models included fixed effects for age of cow (linear a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Ambrosini, Diego Pangung, Carneiro, Paulo Luiz Souza, Braccini Neto, José, Martins Filho, Raimundo, Amaral, Rosimira dos Santos, Cardoso, Fernando Flores, Malhado, Carlos Henrique Mendes
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:Brasil
Institución:Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)
Repositorio:Repositório Institucional da UFRGS
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:www.lume.ufrgs.br:10183/107112
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10183/107112
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Gado nelore
Melhoramento genetico animal
Bayesian inference
Environmental gradient
Genetic value
Random regression
Zebu cattle
Descripción
Sumario:The objective of this study was to evaluate the genotype-environment interaction (GEI) in the body weight adjusted to 550 days of age (W550) of Polled Nellore cattle raised in Northeastern Brazil using reaction norms (RN) models. Hierarchical RN models included fixed effects for age of cow (linear and quadratic) and random effects for contemporary groups (CG) and additive genetic RN level and slope. Four RN hierarchical models (RNHM) were used. The RNHM2S uses the solutions of contemporary groups estimated by the standard animal model (AM) and considers them as environmental level for predicting the reaction norms and the RNHM1S, which jointly estimate these two sets of unknowns. Two versions were considered for both models, one with a homogeneous (Hm) and another with a heterogeneous (He) residual variance. The one-step homogeneous residual variance model (RNHM1SHm) offered better adjustment to the data when compared with other models. For the RNHM1SHm model, estimates of additive genetic variance and heritability increased with environment improvement (260.75±75.80 kg2 to 4298.39±356.56 kg2 and 0.22±0.05 to 0.82±0.01, for low- and high-performance environments, respectively). High correlation (0.97±0.01) between the intercept and the slope of RN shows that animals with higher genetic values respond better to environment improvement. In the evaluation of breeding sires with higher genetic values in the various environments using Spearman’s correlation, values between 0 and 0.98 were observed, pointing to high reclassification, especially among genetic values obtained by the animal model in comparison with those obtained via RNHM1SHm. The existence of GEI is confirmed, and so is the need for specific evaluations for low, medium and high level production environments.