The value of crossbreeding information in selection of poultry under a dominance model

Abstract

A stochastic simulation was used to investigate the value of crossbreeding information in a two line crossbreeding system in poultry under different genetic scenarios. Populations consisted of 25 sires and 250 dams, which were mated to produce both purebred and crossbred progeny. The next generation parents were selected either based on purebred information (PLS) (sib means, and own performance for females) or additional crossbred sib means were included (CCPS). The trait under selection was controlled by 20 loci with varying degree of dominance. Pure lines differed in initial allele frequencies. If the trait was controlled by loci with partial dominance, little or no extra benefit was obtained from including crossbred information over the pure line information. Under complete dominance and overdominance CCPS outperformed PLS. As a practical rule, CCPS is better than PLS if the ratio between dominance variance and total genetic variance is around 0·3 or higher. In this case the most probable cause of the dominance variation is loci with full or overdominance.