Data for: Estimation of genetic parameters for the implementation of selective breeding in commercial insect production

Background
There is a burgeoning interest in using insects as a sustainable source of food and feed, particularly by capitalising on various waste materials and by-products that are typically considered of low value. Enhancing the commercial production of insects can be achieved through two main approaches: optimising environmental conditions and implementing selective breeding strategies. In order to successfully target desirable traits through selective breeding, having a thorough understanding of the genetic parameters pertaining to those traits is essential. In this study, a full-sib half-sib mating design was used to estimate variance components and heritabilities for larval size and survival at day seven of development, development time and survival from egg to adult, and to estimate correlations between these traits, within an outbred population of house flies (Musca domestica), using high-throughput phenotyping for data collection.
Results
The results revealed low to intermediat..., , , # Dataset: Estimation of genetic parameters for the implementation of selective breeding in commercial insect production

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kwh70rzc5](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kwh70rzc5)

Housefly (Musca domestica) phenotype data. Data was collected in the autumn/winter 2021 by Laura Skrubbeltrang Hansen (AU, QGG, Denmark) and Stine Frey Laursen (AAU, Denmark) in the DFF FTP project \"Optimisation of insect production for animal feed through breeding\" (Torsten Nygaard Kristensen, AAU, Denmark). There are four traits in the dataset: larval size (surface area of larvae at day 7 of development), larval survival (survival from egg to day 7 of development), development time (time from egg until emergence as adult) and adult survival (survival from egg to the day of emergence as adult). The traits are recorded on offspring from a number of full- and half-sib families. The dataset has 19800 observations and 20 variables. Many observations are NA.

## Description of the data an...