DMU - a package for analyzing multivariate mixed models.

DMU is a package directed towards applications in quantitative genetics, and it implements powerful tools to estimate variance components and fixed effects (BLUE) and to predict random effects (BLUP). Most of the development of DMU has been in response to the needs in research projects in applied quantitative animal genetics along a period extending for more than 25 years. Indeed, DMU has been the main tool for statistical inference (both estimation and prediction) in the Danish animal breeding research. Moreover, DMU has been used in routine genetic evaluation of cattle, sheep, mink and horse in Denmark, and in several other countries. This led to a package implementing an ample range of statistical methods and computation algorithms, which not only implement high performance methods for specific project-related problems, but also are of general applicability in quantitative genetics.