The characterization of genetic variability and an estimate of the genetic relationship among varieties are essential to any breeding program, because artificial crosses among less similar parents allow a larger segregation and the combination of different favorable alleles. Genetic variability can be evaluated in different ways, including the Coefficient of Parentage (COP), which estimates the...

Estimation of short tandem repeat (STR) multilocus genotype frequencies for the identification of individuals and estimation of allele frequencies for parentage assignment both depend on (a) testing a lot of loci, (b) high levels of polymorphism at each locus tested, and (c) independence among alleles. Independence is critical, because the estimation of multilocus genotype and gamete frequencie...

Research has explored how multiracial individuals are categorized by monoracial individuals, but has not yet explored how they are categorized by multiracial individuals themselves. We examined how multiracial children (4-9 years) and adults categorized multiracial targets (presented with and without parentage information). When parentage information was provided, multiracial targets were more ...

Molecular markers have been used to predict the genetic variance of segregating soybean populations by measuring the genetic distance between parents. For this purpose we analyzed the genetic distance among six pairwise combinations of four soybean lines grown in Southern Brazil. The AFLP-based distances (AFD) were estimated with 21 primer-pair combinations. Additive genetic variance (D) was es...

Fifteen bovine microsatellites were evaluated for use in parentage testing in 725 bison from 14 public populations, 178 bison from two private ranches and 107 domestic cattle from five different breeds. The number of alleles per locus ranged from five to 16 in bison and from five to 13 in cattle. On average, expected heterozygosity, polymorphism information content (PIC) and probability of excl...

Zoo-based captive breeding programs typically rely on accurate pedigrees to maintain long-term population genetic diversity and prevent close inbreeding. For many mixed-sex captive populations, it is difficult to assign parentage of offspring with certainty without conducting DNA-based parentage analyses. Using the demographic parameters of a North American captive population of Arabian oryx (O...

When a parent's parentage differs across breeding attempts, established theory predicts that the parent should invest more in a brood when perceived parentage is high. We present a model of parental investment in which offspring unrelated to the parent have a competitive advantage over the parent's own offspring and take a larger share of investment. We show that this can weaken or, if the comp...

The formulae for computing the so-called Sib Index using codominant alleles for (1) full-sib and (2) half-sib parentage are given. Hypothesis testing is based on the distribution of conditional likelihood ratio or Bayes' factor. Thresholds for rejecting the null hypothesis and P-values were obtained in function of the number of alleles and their frequency distributions. Simulations showed that ...

external fluted feed rolls are commonly used in grain drills. the fluted feed roll meters a volume of seeds and does not singulate the seeds as do the precision planters; therefore, there will be inherent variation in the number of seeds delivered per unit of time. this research was conducted to investigate the effect of seed meter drive shaft and ground speeds and outlet positions in a grain d...