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Use of field data in genomic reference populations for pig breeding
Potential benefits of genotyping production animals with phenotypes for a trait not routinely measured on close relatives of the selection candidates were studied by stochastic simulations. The population structure was similar to a typical pig population structure. The trait under investigation had low heritability, was measured late in life on production animals only and was negatively correlated to other traits in the breeding goal. Under such unfavorable conditions, genotyping production animals could not prevent this trait to get negative genetic gain or reduce the drop in genetic level significantly unless the economic weight of the trait in the nucleus was at least 50 % of the breeding goal. The genotyping had however some impact on the rate of inbreeding. If the traits were uncorrelated traits genetic gain increased for the trait under investigation and the effect of genotyping animals with phenotypes increased.
Keywords:
Genomic selection
Reference population
Pig
