Genetics and Breeding

To select for a simply-inherited trait requires knowing just three things: the number of loci involved (often just one), the number of alleles at each locus (usually a small number), and the genotypes or possible genotypes of the parents-to-be (again typically a small number). In the case of a simply-inherited trait that is partially dominant, such as Andalusian chicken colour, all three pieces of information are known. There is just one locus (B), two alleles (’B’ and ‘b’), and three genotypes easily identifiable by eye (’BB’, black; ‘Bb’, slate blue; and ‘bb’, white). more »

As mentioned, simply-inherited and polygenic traits are equally subject to the same Mendelian and non-Mendelian inheritance forces. And both can have gene and genotypic frequencies shifted by selection and mating systems. But while it is often straightforward to observe the effect of a simply-inherited trait owing to the small number of genes involved, this isn’t the case with polygenic traits. It is often not even known how many genes are involved in a particular polygenic trait, nor what the effect of each may be. It is because of this complexity that breeders must take very different approaches when working with simply-inherited and polygenic traits. more »

While — for the most part — there are differences between simply-inherited and polygenic traits, they also share much in common. Both types of trait are still determined by genes and inheritance. more »

The word trait, you may recall, is often used interchangeably with phenotype, but they are not the same thing at all. A trait is something that can be measured or observed, for example temperament, colour or wool staple length/year. A phenotype is the value of the trait: ‘aggressive’, ‘brindle’ or ‘120mm’. Traits fall into two categories: simply-inherited and polygenic. more »

Fibre diameter can vary dramatically along a wool staple, especially in the Mediterranean environment of southern Australia with its dry summers and abundance of green feed in spring. Other research results have shown a very low phenotypic correlation between fibre diameter grown between seasons. Many breeders use short staples to measure fibre diameter for breeding purposes and also to promote animals for sale. The effectiveness of this practice is determined by the relative response to selection by measuring fibre traits on a full 12 months wool staple as compared to measuring them only on part of a staple. If a high genetic correlation exists between the part record and the full record, then using part records may be acceptable to identify genetically superior animals. No information is available on the effectiveness of part records. This paper investigated whether wool growth and fibre diameter traits of Merino wool grown at different times of the year in a Mediterranean environment, are genetically the same trait, respectively. The work was carried out on about 7 dyebanded wool sections/animal.year, on ewes from weaning to hogget age, in the Katanning Merino resource flocks over 6 years. Relative clean wool growth of the different sections had very low heritability estimates of less than 0.10, and they were phenotypically and genetically poorly correlated with 6 or 12 months wool growth. This indicates that part record measurement of clean wool growth of these sections will be ineffective as indirect selection criteria to improve wool growth genetically. Staple length growth as measured by the length between dyebands, would be more effective with heritability estimates of between 0.20 and 0.30. However, these measurements were shown to have a low genetic correlation with wool grown for 12 months which implies that these staple length measurements would only be half as efficient as the wool weight for 6 or 12 months to improve total clean wool weight. Heritability estimates of fibre diameter, coefficient of variation of fibre diameter and fibre curvature were relatively high and were genetically and phenotypically highly correlated across sections. High positive phenotypic and genetic correlations were also found between fibre diameter, coefficient of variation of fibre diameter and fibre curvature of the different sections and similar measurements for wool grown over 6 or 12 months. Coefficient of variation of fibre diameter of the sections also had a moderate negative phenotypic and genetic correlation with staple strength of wool staples grown over 6 months indicating that coefficient of variation of fibre diameter of any section would be as good an indirect selection criterion to improve stable strength as coefficient of variation of fibre diameter for wool grown over 6 or 12 months. The results indicate that fibre diameter, coefficient of variation of fibre diameter and fibre curvature of wool grown over short periods of time have virtually the same heritability as that of wool grown over 12 months, and that the genetic correlation between fibre diameter, coefficient of variation of fibre diameter and fibre curvature on part and on full records is very high (rg > 0.85). This indicates that fibre diameter, coefficient of variation of fibre diameter and fibre curvature on part records can be used as selection criteria to improve these traits. However, part records of greasy and clean wool growth would be much less efficient than fleece weight for wool grown over 6 or 12 months because of the low heritability of part records and the low genetic correlation between these traits on part records and on wool grown for 12 months. more »