Partial Results Regarding the Genetic Determinism of Growth Process in a Native Horse Breed using Wither’s Height

Abstract

Study of variability in domestic animal populations is the foundation of quantitative genetics. Based on statistical methods, the weights of the total phenotype variation that belong to its different fractions (causal components) are quantified: variation due to gene additive effect, variation due to allelic and non-allelic interactions, variation due to environment (general and special), variation due to genotype-environment interaction and possibly variation due to the association between genotype and environment. In this study, during 2017-2020, we used the method of analysis of variance with two sources of variation. The material was represented by 538 individuals from Hucul horse breed analyzed at 18, 30 and 42 months old). The heritability of character was 0.3402±0.1546 (18 months), 0.5549±0.2225 (30 months), 0.4506±0.1895 (42 months), suggest that this is a hereditary condition that follows a quantitative model of inheritance, where the influence of additive genetic factors is moderate to intense. We can conclude that, in this native breed and for this character, a significant share of the phenotypic value is due to the additive effect of genes.