Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:15:37.450Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Egg weight and reproduction traits in laying hens: estimation of direct and maternal genetic effects using Bayesian approach via Gibbs sampling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

A. Sewalem  and
K. Johansson
A. Sewalem*
Affiliation:
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Funbo Lövsta S-755 97 Uppsala, Sweden
K. Johansson
Affiliation:
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Funbo Lövsta S-755 97 Uppsala, Sweden
*
Present address: Roslin Institute (Edinburgh), Roslin, Midlothian EH25 9PS.
Get access

Abstract

Fertility, generally considered as a trait of the two parents, is perhaps best defined as the interaction between the male and female gametes in the production of a viable zygote. Although zygote development and hatchability are traits of the embryo influenced by maternal effects, in most previous studies they have been considered to be female reproductive traits. The aim of this work was to study the influence of sire on fertility and hatchability traits and to estimate the (co)variance components of direct and maternal genetic effects under a Bayesian setting via Gibbs sampling. We measured the fertility of 6396 eggs and the hatchability of 5393 embryos on an individual basis. In addition, egg weight from 42 to 63 weeks of age (EW63) was recorded on an individual egg basis. The sire accounted for a significant amount of the variation infertility and hatchability. For direct heritability, the marginal posterior mean, for fertility and hatchability were almost equal (0·24). The maternal heritabilities for fertility and hatchability were 0·20 and 0·18, respectively. The direct heritability value for the egg weight trait was high. The direct-direct genetic correlation between egg weight and hatchability was negative and significant. The genetic correlations between the direct effect of the egg weight trait and maternal effects for fertility and hatchability were low, with variable signs, and were not significant. On the other hand, significant negative genetic correlations between direct and maternal effects of fertility and hatchability were obtained (the posterior means were –0·56 for FE and –0·55 for HC).

Keywords

Bayesian approachegg weightgenetic effectshensreproductive traits
Type
Breeding and genetics
Information
Animal Science , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , February 2000 , pp. 9 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © British Society of Animal Science 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beaumont, C, Millet, N., Le Bihan-Duval, E., Kipi, A. and Dupuy, V. 1997. Genetic parameters of survival to the different stages of embryonic death in laying hens. Poultry Science 76: 1193–1196.Google Scholar
Beilharz, R. G., Luxford, B. G. and Wilkinson, J. L. 1993. Quantitative genetics and evolution: is our understanding of genetics sufficient to explain evolution? Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics 110: 161–170.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Besbes, B., Ducrocq, V., Tavernier, A., Foulley, J. L., Biochard, M., Beaumont, C. and Protais, M. 1991. Estimation of genetic parameters of egg production traits of laying hens by restricted maximum likelihood applied to a multiple trait reduced model. In Proceedings of the 42nd annual meeting of the European Association for Animal Production, Berlin.Google Scholar
Besbes, B. and Gibson, J. P. 1999. Genetic variation of egg production traits in purbred and crossbred laying hens. Animal Science 68: 433–439.Google Scholar
Besbes, B. and Protais, M. 1997. Analyse génétique de la fertilité et de l’éclosabilité chez la poule pondeuse. Deuxième Journées de In Recherche Avicole, Tours, 8-10 April 1997’, vol. II, pp. 13–16.Google Scholar
Chaudhary, M.L., Sandhu, J. S. and Brah, G. S. 1987. Genetic, phenotypic and environmental relationships of fertility and hatchability with other economics traits in White Leghorn. Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics 104: 169–174.Google Scholar
Fairfull, R. W. and Gowe, R. S. 1990. Genetics of egg production in chicken. In Poultry breeding and genetics (ed. Crawford, R. D.) pp. 705–759. Elsevier, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Falconer, D. S. and Mackay, T. F. C. 1996. Introduction to quantitative genetics, fourth edition. Longman, London.Google Scholar
Förster, A. 1993. Züchterische Möglichkeiten einer Verbesserung der Schlupfrate in Reinzuchtlinien eines Zuchtprogrammes für braune Legehybriden. Institute für Tierzucht und Tierhaltung, der Christian-Albrechts Universität, Kiel, Germany.Google Scholar
Frankham, R. 1990. Are responses to artificial selection for reproductive fitness characters consistently asymmetrical? Genetical Research 56: 35–42.Google Scholar
Frankham, R., Yoo, B. H. and Sheldon, B. L. 1988. Reproductive fitness and artificial selection in animal breeding: culling on fitness prevents a decline in reproductive fitness in lines of Drosophila melanogaster selected for increased inebriation time. Theoretical and Applied Genetics 76: 909–914.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Geyer, C. J. 1992. Practical Markov chain Monte Carlo. Statistical Science 7: 473–511.Google Scholar
Gianola, D. 1982. Theory and analysis of threshold characters. Journal of Animal Science 54: 1079–1096.Google Scholar
Gianola, D. and Foulley, J. L. 1983. Sire evaluation for ordered categorical data with a threshold model. Genetics, Selection, Evolution 15: 201–224.Google Scholar
Gowe, R. S., Fairfull, R. W., McMillan, I. and Schmidt, G. S. 1993. A strategy for maintaining high fertility and hatchability in a multiple trait egg stock selection program. Poultry Science 72: 1433–1448.Google Scholar
Harville, D. A. and Mee, R. W. 1984. A mixed model procedure for analysing ordered categorical data. Biometrics 40: 393–408.Google Scholar
Hunton, P. 1969. Variance and covariance of hatchability and some of its components in the chicken. British Poultry Science 10: 261–272.Google Scholar
Hunton, P. 1971. Genetics of hatchability and its components and some production traits of chicken. British Poultry Science 12: 213–223.Google Scholar
Ibe, S. N. and Hill, W.G. 1988. Transformation of poultry egg production data to improve normality, homoscedasticity and linearity of genotypie regression. Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics 105: 231–240.Google Scholar
Jaffe, W. P. 1964. The relationship between egg weight and yolk weight. British Poultry Science 5: 295–302.Google Scholar
Jensen, J. 1994. Bayesian analysis of bivariate mixed models with one continuous and one binary trait using the Gibbs sampler. Proceedings of the fifth world congress on genetics applied to livestock production, Guelph, vol. 18, pp. 333–336.Google Scholar
Jensen, J., Wang, C.S., Sorensen, D. A. and Gianola, D. 1994. Bayesian inferences on variance and covariance components for traits influenced by maternal and direct genetic effects using Gibbs sampling. Acta Agricuìtume Scandinavica 44: 193–201.Google Scholar
Jeyaruban, M. G. and Gibson, J. P. 1996. Estimation of additive genetic variance in commercial layer poultry and simulated population under selection. Theoretical and Applied Genetics 92: 483–491.Google Scholar
Kinney, T.B. Jr 1969. A summary of reported estimates of heritabilities and of genetic and phenotypic correlations for traits of chickens. Agricultural handbook no. 363, Agricultural Research Service, USD A, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Koerhuis, A. N. M. and Mckay, J. C. 1996. Restricted maximum likelihood estimation of genetic parameters for egg production traits in relation to juvenile body weight in broiler chicken. Livestock Production Science 46: 117–127.Google Scholar
Kriese, L. A., Bertrand, J. K. and Benyshek, L. L. 1991. Age adjustment factors, heritabilities and genetic correlations for scrotal circumstance and related growth traits in Herford and Brangus bulls. Journal of Animal Science 69: 478–489.Google Scholar
Legates, J.E. 1972. The role of maternal effects in animal breeding. IV. Maternal effects in laboratory species. Journal of Animal Science 35: 1294–1302.Google Scholar
Liljedahl, L.-E., Kolstad, N., Sorensen, P. and Maijala, K. 1979. Scandinavian selection and crossbreeding experiment with laying hens. 1. Background and general outline. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica 29: 273–286.Google Scholar
Muscalu, Gr., Panait, M., Ardelean, K., Dragan, L., Gavriluta, E. and Ungureanu, G. 1997. Genetic evolution of reproductive traits in a white leghorn line. Proceedings of the 12th international symposium on current problems in avian genetics, Prague, Czech Republic, pp. 156–157.Google Scholar
Poliak, E. J. and Quaas, R. L. 1981. Monte Carlo study of genetic evaluations using sequentially selected records. Journal of Animal Science 52: 257–267.Google Scholar
Reinhart, B. S. and Hurnik, G. I. 1984. Traits affecting the hatching performance of commercial chicken broiler eggs. Poultry Science 63: 240–245.Google Scholar
Richardson, R. H., Kojima, K. and Lucas, H. L. 1968. An analysis of short term selection experiments. Heredity 23: 493–506.Google Scholar
Robertson, A. and Lerner, I. M. 1949. The heritability of all-or-none traits: viability of poultry. Genetics 34: 395–411.Google Scholar
Rodda, D. D., Friars, G. W., Gavora, J. S. and Merrit, E. S. 1977. Genetic parameter estimates and strain comparisons of egg compositional traits. British Poultry Science 18: 459–473.Google Scholar
Rothschild, M. F. 1996. Genetics and reproduction in the pig. Animal Reproduction Science 42: 143–151.Google Scholar
Sewalem, A. 1998. Genetic study of reproduction traits and their relationship to production traits in White Leghorn lines. Ph.D. thesis, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.Google Scholar
Sewalem, A., Johansson, K., Carlgren, A.-B., Wilhelmson, M. and Lillpers, K. 1998. Are reproductive traits impaired by selection for egg production traits in laying hens? Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics 115: 281–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sorensen, D. 1996. Gibbs sampling in quantitative genetics. Report no. 82, Danish Institute of Animal Science, 8830 Tjele, Denmark.Google Scholar
Sorensen, D. A., Andersen, S., Gianola, D. and Korsgaard, I. 1995. Bayesian inferences in threshold model using Gibbs sampling. Genetics, Selection, Evolution 27: 229–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sturkie, P. D. 1976. Avian physiology, third edition. Springer-Verlag, New York, NY.Google Scholar
Tawfik, V. E. S.van, Horst, P. and Petersen, J. 1981. Untersuchungen an Legehennen Über genetische Funndierung und Beziehungen von Legeleistung, Legereife, Körpergewicht und Kriterien der Eibeschaffenheit. Archiv für geflügelkunde 45: 166–175.Google Scholar
Van Tassel, C. P., Van Vleck, L. D. and Gregory, K. E. 1998. Bayesian analysis of twinning and ovulation rates using a multiple-trait threshold model and Gibbs sampling. Journal of Animal Science 76: 2048–2061.Google Scholar
Wang, C. S., Quaas, R. L. and Poliak, E. J. 1997. Bayesian analysis of calving ease scores and birth weights. Genetics, Selection, Evolution 29: 117–147.Google Scholar
Wei, M. and Werf J. H. J., van der. 1993. Animal model estimation of additive and dominance variance in egg production traits in poultry. Journal of Animal Science 71: 57–63.Google Scholar
Willham, R. L. 1972. The role of maternal effects in animal breeding. III. Biometrical aspects of maternal effects in animals. Journal of Animal Science 35: 1288.Google Scholar