Effect of Phenotypic Productivity Indicators of Dam Cows on Growth Characteristics of Their Daughters in Hereford Cattle
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7868/S3034519726020091Keywords:
beef cattle, maternal effect, calf weight at weaning, maternal productivity, predictive model, cross-validation, model limitationsAbstract
This study was aimed at quantifying the contribution of a complete set of indicators of maternal cow productivity to the variability of their daughters' live weight at weaning in order to test the hypothesis of a weak predictive value of these indicators. Maternal effects make a significant contribution to the variability of productive qualities of offspring in beef cattle breeding. Traditionally, cows that have demonstrated high growth intensity are assumed to be the best mothers. However, this relationship can be ambiguous and include antagonistic effects, when selection for the mother's own growth negatively affects her ability to ensure optimal calf development. The study was conducted on a sample of 42 mother-daughter pairs of the Hereford breed. The live weight of the daughters at the age of 205 days was used as a dependent variable. The full set of productive characteristics of their mothers was used as predictors: age, birth weight, at 205 days, 12 and 15 months, as well as the total bonus score. To build the most parsimonic and robust model, the multiple linear regression method was used, followed by a step-by-step reverse selection of predictors based on the Akaike information criterion (AIC). The final model underwent rigorous diagnostics for compliance with assumptions about the normality of the distribution (the Shapiro-Wilk criterion) and the homogeneity of the variance of the residuals (the Breusch-Pagan criterion. The final regression model, which included the mother's live weight at birth and her total bonus score, turned out to be statistically significant on the whole (F = 3.271; p = 0.0486). However, her explanatory ability was low: the model explained only about 10% of the total variability in the daughters' body weight (adjusted R2 = 0.0997). The effect of the mother's live weight at birth (p = 0.05) and her bonus score (p = 0.0839) was at the level of a statistical trend. Diagnostic tests confirmed the complete statistical correctness of the model (p> 0.05 for the Shapiro-Wilk and Breusch-Pagan tests). The key result was cross-validation, which revealed the low predictive stability of the model: the cross-validation R2 was only 0.0479 with a mean square error of prediction (RMSE) of 19.05 kg, which indicates significant retraining. The low explanatory power and weak predictive stability of the model convincingly prove that the phenotypic growth indicators of the mother are unreliable predictors for accurately predicting the productivity of offspring.
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Работа выполнена в рамках проекта научной тематики «Формирование племенного стада герефордской породы мясного скота с улучшенной продуктивностью с использованием генетических методов селекции (FESF-2023-0002)», регистрационный номер 1023030200009-4-4.2.1.
