Estimation of Genetic Parameters of Heat Tolerance for Production Traits in Canadian Holsteins Cattle

Understanding how cows respond to heat stress has helped to provide effective herd management practices to tackle this environmental challenge. The possibility of selecting animals that are genetically more heat tolerant may provide additional means to maintain or even improve the productivity of th...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Animals (Basel) 2022-12, Vol.12 (24), p.3585
Main Authors: Campos, Ivan L, Chud, Tatiane C S, Junior, Gerson A Oliveira, Baes, Christine F, Cánovas, Ángela, Schenkel, Flavio S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal husbandry
Animal lactation
Animals
Cattle
Climate change
Correlation
Dairy cattle
dairy cow
Dairy industry
Environmental conditions
Environmental information
Ethics
Farms
Genetic variability
Genotypes
Heat
Heat stress
Heat tolerance
Heritability
Humidity
Milk
Milk production
Parameter estimation
production
Proteins
Relative humidity
Temperature effects
temperature-humidity index
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Understanding how cows respond to heat stress has helped to provide effective herd management practices to tackle this environmental challenge. The possibility of selecting animals that are genetically more heat tolerant may provide additional means to maintain or even improve the productivity of the Canadian dairy industry, which is facing a shifting environment due to climate changes. The objective of this study was to estimate the genetic parameters for heat tolerance of milk, fat, and protein yields in Canadian Holstein cows. A total of 1.3 million test-day records from 195,448 first-parity cows were available. A repeatability test-day model fitting a reaction norm on the temperature-humidity index (THI) was used to estimate the genetic parameters. The estimated genetic correlations between additive genetic effect for production and for heat tolerance ranged from -0.13 to -0.21, indicating an antagonistic relationship between the level of production and heat tolerance. Heritability increased marginally as THI increased above its threshold for milk yield (0.20 to 0.23) and protein yield (0.14 to 0.16) and remained constant for fat yield (0.17). A Spearman rank correlation between the estimated breeding values under thermal comfort and under heat stress showed a potential genotype by environmental interaction. The existence of a genetic variability for heat tolerance allows for the selection of more heat tolerant cows.
ISSN:2076-2615
2076-2615
DOI:10.3390/ani12243585