Summary: Animal Breeding And Genetics

Read the summary and the most important questions on animal breeding and genetics

• 1 Introduction

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• Important points of animal breeding

  1. It is essential that the trail (running speed or milk production) under selection is heritable 
     
  2. The animals must have different genetic backgrounds so that selection is possible 
  3. The direction of selection is defined by humans and they decide which animals are allowed to mate and produce members of the next generation
  4. Animal breeding works at population level, not automatically at individual level
  5. Succes of animal breeding can be measured as the cumulative results of multiple generations of selection (future in mind)

• Estimated breeding value (EBV)

  - Made it possible to rank the animals according to their estimated genetic potential, which resulted in more accurate selection and thus a faster genetic improvement across generations

• Large scale animal breeding

  - a big infrastructure is needed combined with high quality data collection, large computing capacity and highly educated people to run the breeding program

• Reasons to prevent showing animals in public

  - prevent infectious diseases to spread
  - production figures had become more important than looks

• Farm animal breeding

  - increasingly global industry
  - breeding companies need to develop products that fit the various markets
  - Introduction of reproduction techniques like artificial insemination (AI) that made it possible to have very large numbers of offspring per father, made it possible to select only the very best males for breeding, without decreasing the population size
  - Embryo transplantation (ET) and ovum pickup 

• Negative correlated responses

  - examples where selective breeding has not only improved certain performances but simultaneously and unintendedly also deteriorated other performances that were not under selection
  - these effects can be reversed by selecting the opposite direction

• 2 Defining breeding goal and set up breeding program + 3

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• Definition of a production system

  - what is the location?
  - what is the purpose of the animal
  - aim -> To genetically improve animals, but conserving genetic diversity migh be also a breeding goals. 
            -> So the aim is to maximize genetic improvement and constrain loss of genetic diversity

• Definition of a breeding goal

  - breeding goal is a direction, not an end point
  - defines which traits are to be improved and how much weight is given to each trait

• Economic breeding value

  - profit equation -> profit = (R1-C1)P1 + (R2-C2)P2 ......
  - The EV (economic value) of a trait is the increase in profit that results from a single unit increase of the trait value 
  - Bio-economic model = system of equations that are interrelated 
  H=VlactoseAlactose + VfatAfat + VproteinAprotein

• Determining selection criteria

  - genetic model
  - breeding value estimation -> refers to the statistical procedure that is used to estimate the breeding values of selection candidates
  - EBV = estimate of the genetic merit of an animal