ACTA VETERINARIA ET ZOOTECHNICA SINICA ›› 2019, Vol. 50 ›› Issue (5): 939-946.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2019.05.005

• ANIMAL GENETICS AND BREEDING • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Genetic Parameter Estimation for Cervical and Thoracic Vertebrae Number Related Traits of Ducks

XU Yaxi1,2, HU Jian2, LIU Hehe2, ZHOU Zhengkui2, HOU Shuisheng2*, LIU Xiaolin1*   

  1. 1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A & F University, Yangling 712100, China;
    2. Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China
  • Received:2019-01-21 Online:2019-05-23 Published:2019-05-23

Abstract:

This study was conducted to estimate the genetic parameters of cervical vertebrae and thoracic vertebrae related traits of ducks, in order to provide a reference for future duck breeding for neck and breast meat yield of Pekin duck. 405 ducks (50 males and 355 females) from the F2 resource population of Pekin duck×mallards were used as research materials for genetic parameters estimation with MTDFREML program. Traits including cervical vertebrae number (CVN), thoracic vertebrae number (TVN), body length(BL), body weight (BW), neck length (NL), neck weight (NW), neck circumference (NC), NL/BL, neck weight percentage (NWP), keel length (KL), breast meat weight (BMW) and breast meat weight percentage (BMWP) were detected and analyzed after slaughtered at 49 weeks of age. The results showed that cervical and thoracic vertebrae number variations were different in different duck populations. The heritability estimated for CVN, TVN, BL, BW, NL, NW, NC, NL/BL, NWP, KL, BMW and BMWP were 0.08, 0.65, 0.49, 0.47, 0.36, 0.45, 0.38, 0.18, 0.43, 0.55, 0.40 and 0.48, respectively. CVN had significant genetic and phenotypic correlation with NL (0.40 and 0.29), NW (0.13 and 0.17) and NWP (0.23 and 0.19). CVN significantly affected NW, NL and NWP(P<0.05). In contrast with CVN, TVN showed no significant genetic and phenotypic correlations with KL (0.01 and 0.05) and BMWP (0.03 and -0.05). KL and BMWP of ducks with different TVN both showed no significant difference(P>0.05). The genetic and phenotypic correlations of KL with BMW (0.72 and 0.49) and BMWP (0.11 and 0.32) were positive and significant. In conclusion, there existed cervical and thoracic vertebrae number variation in duck populations. Selection on cervical vertebrae number could improve the neck yield indirectly, while selection on thoracic vertebrae number could not increase the yield of the breast meat. Besides that, the study also verified that the selection on keel length could improve breast meat yield.

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