Genet. Sel. Evol. 38 (2006) 601-615
DOI: 10.1051/gse:2006024

Multibreed analysis by splitting the breeding values

Luis Alberto García-Cortés^{a, b} and Miguel Ángel Toro<sup>a

a</sup>  Departamento de Mejora Genética Animal, SGIT-INIA, Carretera de la Coruña, Km. 7, 28040-Madrid, Spain
^b  Departamento de Producción Animal, ETSI Agrónomos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain

(Received 5 August 2005; accepted 27 June 2006; published online 28 November 2006)

Abstract - An equivalent model for multibreed variance covariance estimation is presented. It considers the additive case including or not the segregation variances. The model is based on splitting the additive genetic values in several independent parts depending on their genetic origin. For each part, it expresses the covariance between relatives as a partial numerator relationship matrix times the corresponding variance component. Estimation of fixed effects, random effects or variance components provided by the model are as simple as any model including several random factors. We present a small example describing the mixed model equations for genetic evaluations and two simulated examples to illustrate the Bayesian variance component estimation.

Key words: segregation variance / multibreed population / genetic evaluation / mixed model equations  / Gibbs sampler

Correspondence and reprints: garcia@inia.es

© INRA, EDP Sciences 2006