Wrong and missing sire information affects genetic gain in the Angeln dairy cattle population

In the present study, molecular genetic markers were used to help estimate the degree of wrong sire information in the German Angeln dairy cattle population. Sixteen polymorphic microsatellite markers were genotyped on 5 different paternal half-sib families with a total of 805 daughters. For the genotyping process, blood samples of the daughters and semen samples of the sires were used. Allelic frequencies and exclusion probabilities were estimated. The simultaneous effect of wrong (WSI) and missing sire information (MSI) on the reliability of estimated breeding values and on the genetic gain was investigated using deterministic simulations. For these simulations, different values for the number of daughters per sire, heritability, WSI, and MSI were chosen. The estimated proportion of the WSI was 7% in the German Angeln dairy cattle population. The combined impact of WSI and MSI on the genetic gain was relatively large, especially in the case of small progeny size per sire and low heritability. The impact of WSI was more harmful than MSI on response to selection.