Modeling missing pedigree with metafounders and validating single-step genomic predictions in a small dairy cattle population with a great influence of foreign genetics

Abstract

Genetic improvement in small countries rely heavily on foreign genetics. In an importing country such as Uruguay, consideration of unknown parent groups (UPG) for foreign sires is essential. However, the use of UPG in genomic model evaluations may lead to bias in genomic estimated breeding values. The objective of this study was to study different models including UPG or Metafounders (MF) in the Uruguayan Holstein evaluation and to analyze bias, dispersion, and accuracy of (G)EBV predictions in BLUP and ssGBLUP. Gamma matrix (Γ) was estimated either by using base allele population frequencies obtained by bounded linear regression (MFbounded), or by using 2 values to design Γ, i.e., a single value for the diagonal and a different value for the off-diagonal (MFrobust). Both Γ estimators performed well in terms of GEBV predictions, but MFbounded was the best option. There is, however, some bias whose origin was not completely understood. UPG or MF seem to model correctly genetic progress for unknown parents except for the very first groups (earlier time period). As for validation bulls, bias was observed across all models, whereas for validation cows it was only observed with UPG in BLUP. Overdispersion was found in all models, but it was mostly detected in validation bulls. Ratio of accuracies indicated that ssGBLUP gave better predictions than BLUP.