Genomic prediction with non-additive effects in beef cattle: Stability of variance component and genetic effect estimates against population size

Background

Genomic prediction is now an essential technology for genetic improvement in animal and plant breeding. Whereas emphasis has been placed on predicting the breeding values, the prediction of non-additive genetic effects has also been of interest. Thus, we assessed the potential of genomic prediction using non-additive effects for phenotypic prediction in Japanese Black, a beef cattle breed. In addition, we examined the stability of variance component and genetic effect estimates against population size by subsampling with different sample sizes.

Results

Records of six carcass traits, namely, carcass weight (CW), rib eye area (REA), rib thickness (RT), subcutaneous fat thickness (SFT), yield rate (YI) and beef marbling score (BMS), for 9850 animals were used for analyses. As the non-additive genetic effects, dominance, additive-by-additive, additive-by-dominance and dominance-by-dominance effects were considered. The covariance structures of these genetic effects were ...