Nonlinear Effects of Chicken Endogenous Viruses on Body Weight May Be Responsible for Maintaining These Elements in a Stable Genetic Polymorphism

Abstract

The effects of presence or absence of individual endogenous virus (ev) genes on production traits was studied in a highly productive commercial layer cross. Age and BW at first egg, egg production, egg weight, and mature BW were recorded for each bird. The birds were examined for presence of ev gene fragments by Southern analysis. A general linear model was used to determine significance of effects of the 21 individual ev fragments on the individual traits and the effects of all ev fragments taken together on each of the traits. Seven significant effects were found for individual ev fragments on individual traits. Four of these involved BW at first egg, and all ev gene fragments taken together had a significant effect on BW at first egg, explaining 17% of total phenotypic variation in this trait. Significant nonlinear correlations were found between total number of ev genes and both BW at first egg and mature BW, with birds having a moderate number of ev genes showing the lowest BW. For age at first egg and egg weight, nonlinear correlations, although not significant, were consistent in sign with those found for BW, implying minimum trait magnitude at moderate number of ev genes. These effects imply that animals with intermediate numbers of ev genes will tend to be favored by commercial selection in layer flocks, whereas birds with either too many or too few ev genes will tend to be culled. Thus, the nonlinear effects provide a plausible explanation for the generally moderate frequency of individual ev genes in commercial poultry populations and for their retention as a stable polymorphism in these populations without fixation.