How is heritability used in breeding programs?
Heritability tells the breeder how much confidence to place in the phenotypic performance of an animal when choosing parents of the next generation. For highly heritable traits where h2 exceeds 0.40, the animal’s phenotype is a good indicator of genetic merit or breeding value. For lowly heritable traits, where h2 is below 0.15, an animal’s performance is much less useful in identifying the individuals with the best genes for the trait. Heritability is one important component of the equation used to predict genetic progress from selection to improve a trait.
