The heritability of gingival crevice depths in sheep

The gingival crevices of the four central incisor teeth of 396 sheep with known sires were measured at the mid-labial, mid-mesial and distal (interproximal), and mid-lingual aspects to test the hypothesis that gingival crevice depths were heritable. In total, 6336 gingival crevices were examined. Mean crevicular depths were 1·50 mm (labial), 3·16 mm (interproximal) and 6·52 mm (lingual). Within breed-strain genetic variation was examined and paternal half-sib heritability estimates were found to be high for the interproximal crevice depth (0·66 ± 0·20) and the lingual crevice depth (0·69 ± 0·21), but lower, and non-significant, for the labial crevice depth (0·24 ± 0·17).