You are wanting to breed a herd of super-cattle, which will beheavier than other cattle in Nebraska. You start with a populationwith a mean weight of 1450 lbs. You select the top 20% of yourcattle for weight, which has a mean of 1550 lbs. You then breedonly the selected cattle together and observe that the mean weightof the offspring is 1475 lbs.
a. What is the narrow-sense heritability for cattle weight forthis population of cattle?
b. Your neighbor’s herd has a narrow-sense heritability of 40%(or 0.40) for cattle weight. Which herd, yours or the neighbor’s,would be best to use to breed the herd of super-cattle?
