Question

You know that the narrow-sense heritability of milk production in Ayrshire cattle is 0.587. You perform an experiment where you take a parental population of cattle with a mean milk production of 5.1L/hr and selectively breed only the top 10% of cows in this population, who have a mean milk production of 8.9L/hr, what is the response to selection (R) in your experiment

Answer 1

Step-by-step explanation:

Narrow sense heritability - h​​​​2

​​​​​​selection differential - S

Selection differential is calculated from the difference between the population average and the parental population.

Breeder's equation:

Response to selection - R = h​​​​​​2S

Mean milk production of 10% cows for experiment = 8.9L/hr

Mean milk production of parental population = 5.1L/hr

Selection differential S= 8.9 - 5.1 = 3.8 L/hr

Response to selection = 0.587 × 3.8 = 2.23