prediction of breeding values when variances are not known育种值预测方差是未知的.pdfVIP

Prediction of breeding values when variances are not known D. GIANOLA* J.L. FOULLEY* R.L. FERNANDO’ * Department of Animal Sciences University of Illinois at (lrbana Champaign, U.S.A. ** LN.R.A., Station de Génétique quantitative et appliquee Centre de Recherches Zootechniques, F 78350 Jouy-en-Josas Summary The joint distribution of breeding values and of records usually depends on unknown parameters such as means, variances and covariances in the case of the multivariate normal distribution. If the objective of the analysis is to make selection decisions, these parameters should be considered as « nuisances ». If the values of the parameters are unknown, the state of uncertainty can be represented by a prior probability distribution. This is then combined with the information contributed by the data to form a posterior distribution from which the needed predictors are calculated after integrating out the « nuisances ». Prediction under alternative states of knowledge is discussed in this paper and the corresponding solutions presented. It is shown that when the dispersion structure is unknown, modal estimators of variance parameters should be considered. Because a Bayesian framework is adopted, the estimates so obtained are necessarily If about means and variances is and the distribu- non-negative. prior knowledge completely vague tion is multivariate normal, the « optimalpredictors in the sense of maximizing the expected merit of the selected candidates can be approximated by using the « mixed model equations » with the unknown variances replaced by restricted maximum like