Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2023, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (6): 2288-2296.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2023.06.009

• ANIMAL GENETICS AND BREEDING • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Litter Effect Analysis and Genetic Parameters Estimation of Lean Meat Percentage Trait in Duroc Pigs

ZHOU Fuchen1,2, YE Jian2, GUO Caijin2, ZENG Haiyu2, WU Zhenfang1,2, DONG Linsong2*, CAI Gengyuan1,2*   

  1. 1. National Engineering Research Center for Breeding Swine Industry, College of Animal Science, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China;
    2. Guangdong Zhongxin Breeding Technology Co. Ltd., Guangzhou 510642, China
  • Received:2022-09-29 Online:2023-06-23 Published:2023-06-16

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the genetic parameters of lean meat percentage traits and the relationship between their main growth traits, and to analyze the effects of litter effect on lean meat percentage and main growth traits, so as to provide reference for the improvement of lean meat percentage traits. In this study, the corrected 115 kg lean meat percentage (LMP), corrected 115 kg daily gain (ADG), corrected 115 kg backfat thickness (BFT), and corrected 115 kg eye muscle area (LMA) traits were studied in a Duroc pig population (26 392 animals) at a core farm of Guangdong Zhongxin Breeding Technology Co.. The R software was used to analyze the fixed effects on LMP, ADG, BFT, and LMA in Duroc pigs. The genetic parameters of estimation with and without litter effect for lean meat percentage traits, and the genetic and phenotypic correlations between LMP trait and growth traits were evaluated using DMU software. The results showed that the number of phenotypic records for each of these traits reached more than 20 000, and the heritability of the LMP trait was 0.34±0.019 when the litter effect was taken into consideration, the heritability of the LMP trait was 0.45±0.017 when the litter effect was not considered. The genetic correlation coefficient between LMP and ADG traits was relatively small, but it was highly significantly positively correlated with the LMA trait. In addition, the weight of the litter effect in the overall variance for the LMP, ADG, BFT, and LMA traits in this Duroc population was 0.15, 0.21, 0.15, and 0.14, respectively, and the mean annual estimated breeding value (EBV) for LMP showed an increasing trend. The above results showed that the heritability of LMP, ADG, BFT, and LMA of this Duroc population belonged to medium heritability and was greatly affected by the litter effect. The fitting effect of the these traits was further enhanced and the accuracy of genetic evaluation was increased by treating the litter effect as a random variable in the genetic evaluation model. In addition, the effects of other traits , such as maternal genetic effects, are needed to be further discussed. The above results showed that the loin muscle area trait was cooperatively selected by lean meat percentage traits, and further explained the reason why loin muscle area was used as auxiliary traits in the current lean meat percentage prediction equation.

Key words: Duroc pigs, lean meat percentage, litter effect, genetic parameter

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