Journal
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL BREEDING AND GENETICS
Volume 128, Issue 6, Pages 482-490Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1439-0388.2011.00948.x
Keywords
Animal breeding; breeding program; breeding value; microsatellite
Categories
Funding
- Fisheries Victoria (FV) (Department of Primary Industries, Victoria)
- Victorian mussel faming industry through the Victorian Shellfish Hatchery Pty Ltd. (VSH) (Queenscliff, Victoria)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study aimed to estimate the heritabilities of three economically important traits (total weight, shell shape and meat yield) in Australian blue mussels. The estimates were derived using a pedigree reconstructed from a suite of both published and newly developed microsatellite markers. A total of 135 microsatellite loci were tested, of which 10 loci produced consistent PCR amplification and reliable results across all samples (74 full-sibling families including 74 pairs of parents and 2536 offspring). Lack of polymorphism at the non-repetitive region of the adhesive protein gene confirmed that the broodstock were derived from a single species. A total of 1538 progenies (62.5%) could be assigned to single parent pairs, and the remainder were assigned to two families or more, so were discarded from further analysis. Heritabilities for total weight, shell shape and meat yield were low (0.051 +/- 0.027, 0.085 +/- 0.038 and 0.049 +/- 0.028, respectively) but reflected large environmental variation rather than limited genetic variation, suggesting a family-based breeding programme could improve these traits. The genetic correlation between weight and meat yield, expressed as percentage of total mussel which was not shell, was negative, while the genetic correlation between meat yield and shell shape was weakly positive.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available