Abstract
The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic parameters of two generations of zebrafish breeding program. The base population was formed by crossing individuals of six commercial stocks of zebrafish, resulting in a nucleus with 60 families. Two generations were evaluated, with a total of 780 and 781 individuals for the first and second generation, respectively. The selection was made based on the mean genetic value of each family, followed by mass selection of the breeders. Mathematical models that considered the fixed (age, density in the larval stage, sex, and generation) and random (animal additive genetics, common to full-sibs, and residual) effects were evaluated using BLUPF90 program family. Weight and total length were used as response variables. Total length was the best selection criterion because it had a higher heritability (0.30) than weight (0.22). There was a high common to full-sib effect, especially in the first generation of animals. For second-generation data, the heritability was 0.26 for total length, as well as a lower common to full-sib effect for length. The best model obtained for this evaluation was considering all effects, being age and density as first and second polynomial, respectively. The genetic and phenotypic correlations for weight and length were 0.87 and 0.75, respectively. These results indicate that genetic breeding using total length as the selection criterion may produce a larger and heavier zebrafish strain.
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Statement of author contributions
Vanessa Lewandowski: Project execution, statistical analysis, and paper writing
Cesar Sary: Project execution and data collect
Jaisa Casetta: Project execution and data collect
André Luiz Seccato Garcia: Statistical analysis
Carlos Antonio Lopes de Oliveira: Experimental design and statistical analysis
Ricardo Pereira Ribeiro: Experimental design
Lauro Daniel Vargas Mendez: Paper revision
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The authors are grateful to CAPES for the financial support.
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All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. All procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution of practice at which the studies were conducted.
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Communicated by: Maciej Szydlowski
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Lewandowski, V., Sary, C., Casetta, J. et al. Zebrafish breeding program: genetic parameters estimates for growth traits. J Appl Genetics 60, 209–216 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13353-019-00497-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13353-019-00497-9