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Record W4414830741 · doi:10.1093/jas/skaf300.542

PSXI-3 Comparing the heritability of methane emission traits in cattle and sheep: A Meta-analysis.

2025· article· en· W4414830741 on OpenAlexaff
Timothy Houghton, Emily M. Leishman, Natalee T Richardson, J.L. Ellis, F. Miglior, Flávio S. Schenkel, Christine F. Baes, Ricarda E Jahnel

Bibliographic record

VenueJournal of Animal Science · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldEnvironmental Science
TopicAgriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact
Canadian institutionsUniversity of Guelph
Fundersnot available
KeywordsHeritabilityMethaneGreenhouse gasRestricted maximum likelihoodSelection (genetic algorithm)Methane emissionsDairy cattleProduction (economics)

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Abstract One source of greenhouse gases is the natural production of enteric methane from microbial fermentation in a ruminant’s digestive system. In recent years, genetic selection has been identified as a possible approach to reducing these emissions due to the identification of methane production as a heritable trait. However, heritability estimates might vary according to the animal type or their purpose (i.e., beef or dairy production), or measurement method. The objective of this study was to conduct a systemic literature review and a meta-analysis comparing heritability estimates of methane production. The literature review identified 38 unique methane production heritability estimates across 31 different studies that provided standard errors of the estimates. Purpose of animal (Beef cattle, Dairy cattle, or Dual-Purpose Sheep), collection methods (Greenfeed, Chambers (Respiration/Portable Accumulation), SF6, or Sniffers), and geographical location (Australia, Europe, New Zealand, or North America) were among the variables extracted from each study into Excel. Methane production heritability estimates from both directly measured methane and MIR/DMI predicted measures of methane production were also extracted from the studies. A generalized linear fixed effects model assuming a Beta distribution of the estimates and logit link function was fit using SAS 9.4 Proc GLIMMIX. Due to the dataset not having effective cross-classification across the levels of factors, no two-way interactions were tested. Across the studies, an average moderately low heritability was found at 0.17 ± 0.01 with a minimum and maximum of 0.11 and 0.43, respectively. Heritability estimates were weighted using the reported standard errors. Preliminary results showed that the fixed effects of collection method (P=0.002), animal purpose (P< 0.001), and geographical location (P< 0.001) were all significant. Prediction type (Direct or Predicted) was found to be non-significant (P=0.93), further supporting the potential effectiveness of methods for predicting methane production. Compared to New Zealand, the log-odds estimates of Europe, Australia, and America decrease by -1.3 ± 0.45, -1 ± 0.27, and -0.49 ± 0.47, respectively. While the estimates for beef increase by 0.63 ± 0.24 compared to sheep and estimates for dairy decrease by -0.45 ± 0.30. Further models incorporating other variables are being developed to potentially investigate the impact of the frequency of measurements. These preliminary findings suggest that there can be significant impacts of collection method, animal type, and geographical location on the estimated heritability of methane production. However, further work needs to be done to refine these analyses and investigate other potentially contributing factors.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.015
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.022
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Meta-analysis · Consensus signal: Meta-analysis
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: none
Teacher disagreement score0.015
Threshold uncertainty score0.081

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0150.022
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0020.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0050.028
Bibliometrics0.0040.006
Science and technology studies0.0010.001
Scholarly communication0.0030.001
Open science0.0020.002
Research integrity0.0020.002
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0060.001

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.029
GPT teacher head0.294
Teacher spread0.265 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designMeta-analysis
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations1
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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