@phdthesis{Wittenburg2013, author = {D{\"o}rte Wittenburg}, title = {Statistical modelling of birth weight variability within litter in pigs}, journal = {Statistische Modellierung der Variabilit{\"a}t des Geburtsgewichtes innerhalb Wurf beim Schwein}, url = {https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:gbv:9-001647-2}, year = {2013}, abstract = {The study of sow reproduction traits is important in livestock science and production to increase animal survival and economic efficiency. This work deals with the detection of different effects on within-litter variance of birth weight by applying different statistical models with different distributional assumptions. The piglets within one litter were separated by sex. The trait of sow was formed from the sample variances of birth weights within litter separated by sex to consider the sex effect on mean birth weight. A linear mixed model (LMM) approach was fitted to the logarithmized sample variance and the sample standard deviation. A generalized linear mixed model with gamma distributed residuals and log-link function was applied to the untransformed sample variance. Appropriate weights were constructed to account for individual litter sizes. Models were compared by analysing data from Landrace and Large White. The estimates of heritability for the different traits ranged from 6-14\%. The LMM for the weighted standard deviation of birth weights was identified as most suitable in terms of residual normality. Furthermore, the impact of pigletsĀ“ sex on birth weight variability was tested, but it was only proved for one practical dataset. Additionally, we analysed the influence of including or not including birth weights of stillborn piglets on the estimates of variance components of birth weight variability. With omitted stillborns the estimates of heritability resulted in about 2\% higher values than in investigations of total born piglets. We were interested in the presence of the random boar effect on birth weight variability. The corresponding variance component was tested via restricted likelihood ratio test. Among others, the null distribution of the test statistic was approximated by parametric bootstrap simulations which were computational intensive. We picked up a two-parametric approach from literature and proposed a three-parametric approach to approximate the null distribution of the test statistic. We have analysed correlated data in balanced (simulated data) and unbalanced (empirical data) designs. The two-parametric approach using a scaled mixture of chisquare-distributions as well as a three-parametric approach, that uses a mixture of the point mass at zero and a gamma distribution, behaved most solid in all investigations and were most powerful in the simulation study.}, language = {en} }