Including the genetic values of the possible parents when analyzing pedigrees that contain MULT groups

Area of Science:

• Animal genetics
• Quantitative genetics
• Studbook management

Background:

• Studbooks use MULT to denote unknown parents from a known group.
• Parental probabilities are assigned based on biology or management, influencing mean kinship (MK) calculations.
• Default assigns equal probability when no information is available.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop methods integrating parental probabilities and MKs.
• To introduce parental weights as a replacement for probabilities in analysis.
• To assess the impact of varying MKs within a MULT group.

Main Methods:

• Developed methods to combine parental probabilities with mean kinships (MKs).
• Introduced "parental weights" derived from combined probabilities and MKs.
• Replaced traditional parental probabilities with these new weights in analyses.

Main Results:

• Parental weights were calculated by combining probabilities and MKs.
• The difference between parental weights and probabilities was typically under 30%, even with differing MKs.
• The study quantified the impact of MK variation on parental assignments.

Conclusions:

• Accurate estimation of parental probabilities is vital for reliable genetic analyses.
• Relying on default equal probabilities can be less accurate than informed assignments.
• Parental weights offer a refined approach to handling unknown parentage in studbooks.