Genetic Parameters of Birth Weight and Weaning Weight and Their Relationship with Gestation Length and Age at First Calving in Hanwoo (Bos taurus coreanae)

Bryan Irvine Lopez; Kier Gumangan Santiago; Kangseok Seo; Taejoon Jeong; Jong-Eun Park; Han-Ha Chai; Woncheoul Park; Dajeong Lim

doi:10.3390/ani10061083

Genetic Parameters of Birth Weight and Weaning Weight and Their Relationship with Gestation Length and Age at First Calving in Hanwoo (Bos taurus coreanae)

Animals (Basel). 2020 Jun 23;10(6):1083. doi: 10.3390/ani10061083.

Authors

Bryan Irvine Lopez¹, Kier Gumangan Santiago^{2

3}, Kangseok Seo², Taejoon Jeong¹, Jong-Eun Park¹, Han-Ha Chai¹, Woncheoul Park¹, Dajeong Lim¹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Animal Genomics and Bioinformatics, National Institute of Animal Science, Rural Development Administration, Wanju 55365, Korea.
² Department of Animal Science and Technology, Sunchon National University, Suncheon 57922, Korea.
³ Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture, Central Luzon State University, Science City of Muńoz 3120, Philippines.

Abstract

Hanwoo is one of the most economically important animal species in Korea due to its significant contribution to nutrition. However, the current selection index only focuses to improve carcass traits of Hanwoo. Thus, this study aimed to estimate the genetic parameters of birth weight (BW) and weaning weight (WW) and their genetic and phenotypic relationship to the age at first calving (AFC) and gestation length (GL) of Hanwoo. The genetic parameters for birth weight (BW) and weaning weight (WW) were estimated using the data obtained from 52,173 and 35,800 Hanwoo calves born from February 1998 to March 2017, respectively. Further, these data were used to determine their genetic and phenotypic correlation to age at first calving (AFC) and gestation length (GL). The heritability estimates of BW and WW and correlation coefficients were obtained using the average information restricted maximum likelihood (AIREML) procedure, fit in single and two-trait linear animal models. The estimated direct heritability for BW and WW was moderate (0.22 ± 0.02) and high (0.51 ± 0.03), respectively, while the maternal heritability for both traits was 0.12 ± 0.01 and 0.17 ± 0.01, respectively. The genetic correlation of BW and reproductive traits (AFC and GL) showed a moderate and high positive correlation coefficient of 0.33 ± 0.06 and 0.53 ± 0.02, respectively, while close to zero and low positive phenotypic correlations of 0.06 ± 0.01 and 0.21 ± 0.06 were also observed between the correlated traits, respectively. For the correlation analysis between WW and AFC, both the genetic and phenotypic correlation showed close to zero values of 0.04 ± 0.06 and -0.01 ± 0.01, respectively. Meanwhile, the genetic and phenotypic correlation between WW and GL showed low and negative correlations of -0.09 ± 0.06 and -0.09 ± 0.01, respectively. These obtained estimated variances for BW and WW and their corresponding genetic and phenotypic correlation to AFC and GL can be used as information for genetic improvement and subsequent economic improvement of Hanwoo farming.

Keywords: Hanwoo cattle; birth weight; genetic parameters; heritability; reproductive traits; weaning weight.

Grants and funding

PJ01316901/AGENDA