About the Authors

Heidi Signer-Hasler

Affiliation School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Zollikofen, Switzerland

Christine Flury

Affiliation School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Zollikofen, Switzerland

Bianca Haase

Affiliations Institute of Genetics, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney, New South Whales, Australia

Dominik Burger

Affiliation Agroscope Liebefeld-Posieux Research Station Agroscope Liebefeld-Posieux (ALP) Haras, Swiss National Stud Farm (SNSTF), Avenches, Switzerland

Henner Simianer

Affiliation Department of Animal Sciences, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany

Tosso Leeb

Affiliation Institute of Genetics, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

Stefan Rieder

stefan.rieder@haras.admin.ch

Affiliation Agroscope Liebefeld-Posieux Research Station Agroscope Liebefeld-Posieux (ALP) Haras, Swiss National Stud Farm (SNSTF), Avenches, Switzerland

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SR HSH. Performed the experiments: BH TL. Analyzed the data: HSH CF TL HS SR. Wrote the paper: HSH TL SR. In charge of sample collection and contributed phenotypic information: DB.