Genetically structured variance heterogeneity

In animal breeding, focus has mostly been on maximizing the level of some trait like litter size for pigs or milk production for cows. However, it is recognized that the variance is also an important factor. Thus it is desirable if e.g. a pig produces not only big litters but also litters of similar magnitude. In this project we continue work on mixed models which are useful for quantifying genetic influence on the variance. In particular  we focus on developing efficient computational methods for such models.