Genetics. Published Articles Ahead of Print: May 23, 2005, Copyright © 2005
doi:10.1534/genetics.104.035956


A more recent version of this article appeared on July 1, 2005.


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Incorporation of Competitive Effects in Plant or Animal Breeding Programs

1 Purdue University

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bmuir{at}purdue.edu.

Submitted on September 3, 2004
Revised on October 21, 2004
Accepted on 16 December 2004


Abstract

Competition among domesticated plants or animals can have a dramatic negative impact on yield of a stand or farm. The usual quantitative genetic model ignores these competitive interactions and could result in seriously incorrect breeding decisions and acerbate animal well-being. A general solution to this problem is given, for either forest tree breeding or penned animals, with mixed model methodology (BLUP) utilized to separate effects on the phenotype due to the individuals own genes (direct effects) and those from competing individuals (associative effects) and thereby to allow optimum index selection on those effects. Biological verification was based on two lines of Japanese quail selected for 6 week weight; one line selected only for direct effects (D-BLUP) while the other selected on an optimal index for both direct and associative effects (C-BLUP). Results over 23 cycles of selection, showed that C-BLUP produced a significant positive response to selection (b=0.52 ± 0.25 g/hatch) whereas D-BLUP resulted in a non significant negative response (b= -.10 ± 0.25 g/hatch). The regression of percent mortality on hatch number was significantly different between methods, decreasing with C-BLUP (b= -.06 ± 0.15 deaths/hatch) and increasing with D-BLUP (b= .32 ± 0.15 deaths/hatch). These results demonstrate that the traditional D-BLUP approach without associative effects is not only detrimental to response to selection but compromises the well-being of animals. The differences in response show that competitive effects can be included in breeding programs, without measuring new traits, so that costs of the breeding program will not increase

Key Words: Aggression, Competition,, Forestry, Group Selection, Kin Selection




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