Inbreeding effective population size under some artificial selection schemes

Abstract

It is well known that truncation selection is the most efficient form of directional selection in terms of changing gene frequency. In this paper we show circumstances where truncation selection followed by a balanced mating generates inbreeding effective population size smaller than that generated by a selection that assigns mating frequencies to individuals according to their breeding values, where both selection schemes give the same expected performance of selected individuals (selection differential). Breeding values of selected individuals and the weight used to determine mating frequencies are assumed to be linearly distributed on a performance scales, x. To assign mating frequencies to the individuals in the weighting system, the selected individuals are grouped using a constant δ, and ith group in the interval xi, xi + δ. With small number of groups, say 2 or 3, the weighting system in general generates inbreeding effective population size that is larger than that generated by a truncation selection. As the number of the groups increases, truncation selection generates larger effective numbers.