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Building effective systems to manage inbreeding in pedigree dog breeds
A new approach advising on inbreeding in pedigree dog populations is developed by tracking the relative importance of components of the sum of squared genetic contributions. Contributions of animals born in 1990 to animals born in subsequent years (1991 to 2012) were calculated from pedigrees of 12 dog breeds. The proportion of variance attributable to the mean, regression of ‘final’ on ‘current’ contributions and residuals were plotted using barycentric co-ordinates showing the relative importance of each. Results showed that variance due to regression, indicating the predictive ability of ‘ultimate’ by ‘early’ contributions, was increasingly predominant over time. Differences in the rate that this occurred were apparent across sexes and breeds. Results indicate that it is feasible to both make reasonable predictions of ultimate contributions and at what ages such predictions become useful, and to develop a dynamic tool for informing breeders using this approach.
Keywords:
genetic contributions
inbreeding
dogs
