Interação genótipo x ambiente e teste de desempenho em coelhos usando inferência Bayesiana

Abstract

The present work was carried out in the Experimental Farm of the Maringá State University, situated in the Iguatemi city, from September of 2005 to November of 2006, in the rabbit production section. Where rabbits of the White New Zealand breed had been evaluated, created in individual or collective cages in the period of 50 to 70 days of age. The objective of this work was to verify the existence of the genotype x environment interaction in rabbits selected by body weight gain performance test. As well as to realize the genetic evaluation and the performance test for body weight gain and feed conversion of the animals submitted to the two environments (individual and collective cages), from 50 to 70 days of age, using the Bayesian inference. It was done unicharacter and bicharacter analysis. Low estimates for the genetic and Spearman correlations were gotten, being an evidence of the genotype x environment interaction existence. In the performance test it was observed that body weight gain and feed conversion characteristic in both environments had heritability values varying from 0.42 to 0.60. The genetic correlation as the phenotypic were positive for body weight gain and feed conversion when evaluated the same characteristic between collective or individual environments, and the correlations between the characteristics among environments were negatives or almost nulls. For being negatives it is verified that in improvement programs for the body weight gain characteristic it is possible to improve the feed conversion and the inverse is true. It is concluded that there is genotype x environment interaction for the body weight gain characteristic in rabbits of the White New Zealand breed when created in collective or individual cages, in the period of 50 to 70 days of age, and the use of the performance test in individual cages as for body weight gain as for feed conversion, can be resulted in genetic progress when the lineages will be created in collective environment. The study demonstrated that the performance test is an adjusted tool to get genetic gains in the feed conversion for rabbits of the White New Zealand breed created in differentiated environments.