Genetic variance and covariance components for carbon dioxide production and postweaning traits in Angus cattle

Title
Genetic variance and covariance components for carbon dioxide production and postweaning traits in Angus cattle
Publication Date
2020-08-10
Author(s)
Donoghue, Kath A
Bird-gardiner, Tracie L
Herd, Robert
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4689-5519
Email: rherd3@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:rherd3
Hegarty, Roger
Arthur, Paul F
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
American Society of Animal Science
Place of publication
United States
DOI
10.1093/jas/skaa253
UNE publication id
une:1959.11/60281
Abstract

This experiment investigated phenotypic and genetic relationships between carbon dioxide production, methane emission, feed intake, and postweaning traits in Angus cattle. Respiration chamber data on 1096 young bulls and heifers from 2 performance recording research herds of Angus cattle were analyzed to provide phenotypic and genetic parameters for carbon dioxide production rate (CPR; n = 425, mean 3,010 +/- SD 589 g/d) and methane production rate (MPR; n = 1,096, mean 132.8 +/- SD 25.2 g/d) and their relationships with dry matter intake (DMI; n = 1,096, mean 6.15 +/- SD 1.33 kg/d), body weight (BW) and body composition traits. Heritability estimates were moderate to high for CPR (0.53 [SE 0.17]), MPR (0.31 [SE 0.07]), DMI (0.49 [SE 0.08]), yearling BW (0.46 [SE 0.08]), and scanned rib fat depth (0.42 [SE 0.07]). There was a strong phenotypic (0.83 [SE 0.02]) and genetic (0.75 [SE 0.10]) correlation between CPR and MPR. The correlations obtained for DMI with CPR and with MPR were high, both phenotypically (r(p)) and genetically (r(g)) (r(p): 0.85 [SE 0.01] and 0.71 [SE 0.02]; r(g) (0.95 [SE 0.03] and 0.83 [SE 0.05], respectively). Yearling BW was strongly correlated phenotypically (r(p) >= 0.60) and genetically (r(g) > 0.80) with CPR, MPR, and DMI, whereas scanned rib fat was weakly correlated phenotypically (r(p) < 0.20) and genetically (r(g) <= 0.20) with CPR, MPR, and DMI. The strong correlation between both CPR and MPR with DMI confirms their potential use as proxies for DMI in situations where direct DMI recording is not possible such as on pasture.

Link
Citation
Journal of Animal Science, 98(9), p. 1-6
ISSN
1525-3163
0021-8812
Pubmed ID
32776133
Start page
1
End page
6

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