About the Authors

Chunkao Wang

Affiliation Department of Animal Science, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States of America

Yang Da

yda@umn.edu

Affiliation Department of Animal Science, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have the following interests: The Holstein SNP data were partly supported by a financial contribution from Holstein Association USA. The Holstein funding was for genotyping and went to the genotyping lab directly. None of the funding from Holstein Association USA went to the authors or university. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: YD. Performed the experiments: CW YD. Analyzed the data: CW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: CW YD. Wrote the paper: YD CW.