Maternal genetic effects on body weight and breast morphological traits in duck population under selection

Abstract. Direct and maternal additive genetic and mitochondrial variances of duck meat performance traits were estimated using AI-REML algorithm. Records of 3 099 (5 010 pedigreed birds) from six consecutive generations were included. The following four traits were investigated: body weight at 3rd week, body weight at 7th week, sternum crest length at 7th week (in cm), and breast muscles thickness at 7th week (in cm). The data were analysed via three single trait linear animal models: I – additive genetic model, II – model extended to additive maternal effects; III– as model II with mitochondrial effects as random. Adequacy of the models was examined by Akaike´s information criterion (AIC). Relatively high direct additive heritability estimates were obtained for body weight at 3rd week (0.4326–0.4546) and body weight at 7th week (0.5322–0.6088) whereas lower estimates were obtained for sternum crest length (0.1756–0.2744) and breast muscles thickness (0.1369–0.2932). The maternal heritabilities were moderate and also considerably depended on the model used. For all of the studied traits a negative covariance between direct and maternal genetic effects was found. Mitochondrial heritabilities were very low. Generally, on the basis of criteria employed, the model III can be suggested for analysis of body weight whereas for other traits model II seems to be suitable.