Heredity – transfer of genetic characteristics from parents to offspring by the process of fertilization.
Progeny – offspring; descendant or the descendants of a person, animal, or plant.
EstimatedBreedingValue – science-based, industry-tested measurements of heritable traits that can be tracked and measured.
EstimatedBreedingValue – measure of genetic merits that can be passed to progenies.
Expected Progeny Difference – prediction of how future progeny of each animal are expected to perform relative to the progeny of other animals listed in the database.
Heritability - measures the relative importance of hereditary and environmental influences on the development of a specific quantitative trait.
Heritability – measure of the degree (0 to 100%) to which offspring resemble their parents for a specific trait.
Heritability – partial description of one trait in one group of animals at some particular time.
Heritability – amount of phenotypic (observable) variation in a population that is attributable to individual genetic differences.
Heritability:
H2 = Vg /Vg + Ve
Heritability or h2: tells the breeder how much confidence to place in the phenotypic performance of an animal when choosing parents of the next generation.
For highly heritable traits where h2 exceeds 0.40, the animal's phenotype is a good indicator of geneticmerit or breedingvalue.
For lowly heritable traits, where h2 is below 0.15, an animal's performance is much lessuseful in identifying the individuals with the best genes for the trait
ExpectedProgenyDifference – Gold Standard for evaluation of genetic merit for a variety of important traits.
ExpectedProgenyDifference – expressed as differences.
Expected Progeny Difference – units are industry standards for each trait (kgs, inches, percent, etc.).
ExpectedProgenyDifference – can be expressed as positive or negative.
Expected Progeny Difference – useful only when comparing animals.
Accuracy – reliability that can be placed on the EPD.
Accuracy – ranges from .00 to 1.00
Accuracy – accuracy close to 1.0 indicates higher reliability.
Economically relevant traits - traits that directly influence either a cost or an income from beef production.
Economically relevant traits:
Probability of calving ease
Sale weight
Stayability
Heifer pregnancy rate
Indicatortraits - traits not directly related to a cost or income from beef production.
Indicator traits:
Birth weight
Weaning weight
Yearling weight
Calving records, interval
Scrotal circumference
ExpectedProgenyDifference - denote the breeding value of an individual animal's progeny.
EstimatedBreedingValue - denote the value of the individual animal.
EPD is equal to half of an animal's EBV as half of an animal's genes are passed to the next generation.