Estimating Dominance Variance

Question

am studying factors affecting day-old chicken's body weight. Can we estimate the dominant effect variance with ASREML?

Answer

Genetic variance associated with families can be partitioned into various components. The largest component is typically the additive component. Each has its own Variance correlation matrix. ASReml only has a built in procedure for computing the additive relationship matrix. However, if a user can obtain the relationship matrix for some other component, it can be supplied to ASReml through the GIV mechanism, and the can then be component estimated.

Barring that, you can fit Family ide(Family) where family has an associated additive relationship matrix. ide(Family) will then represent all other components including the Dominance component.

1 November 2008

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