Summary
Gene action and interaction in the control of body weight of chickens at 0, 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 weeks post-hatching are investigated in the CH and IA inbred Unes and crosses between them up to the S3 and sibbed backcross generations, involving measurements on 1500 cocks and 1626 pullets, spread over 3 years and 14 hatches.
Preliminary analyses concern the removal of hatch and year effects and estimates of the degree of association or dispersion of the size genes in the CH and IA lines. Hatch/year × generation interactions were significant in half of the sex × age combinations, but a simple model removed a significant amount of interaction in nine combinations, removing the significance of the interaction from all except the hatching weights and 4-week male weights. In all sex-age combinations for further analysis, that is 4-week female weights and weights of both sexes beyond that age, genetic dispersion was of the order of 10 per cent.
The main analyses are by least squares equation of generation means to parameters for additive, dominance, maternal and sex-linked effects (additive-dominance model); these plus interactions between two loci (digenic interaction model); and all the foregoing plus linkage between the interacting loci (linked digenics model). The additive-dominance model fitted the 4-week female and 20-week male data, but the remaining data were not fitted except by the linked digenics model. There was evidence of maternal and Z-linked effects. The most clear-cut genetic effect was of simple overdominance throughout the data, but there was evidence of duplicate interaction and additive × dominance interaction, these latter varying with age and between sexes.
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Morton, J. Analysis of gene action in the control of body weight in the chicken. Heredity 31, 165–180 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1973.73
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1973.73
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