1 / 23

Improving Animals Each Generation by Selecting from the Best Gene Sources

Improving Animals Each Generation by Selecting from the Best Gene Sources. The Next Generation. Goals of Animal Breeders. Provide the world’s food needs Adapt animals to do new, more profitable jobs Actual work (guide dog, draft horse) Entertainment or companionship

ura
Download Presentation

Improving Animals Each Generation by Selecting from the Best Gene Sources

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Improving Animals Each Generation by Selecting from the Best Gene Sources

  2. The Next Generation

  3. Goals of Animal Breeders • Provide the world’s food needs • Adapt animals to do new, more profitable jobs • Actual work (guide dog, draft horse) • Entertainment or companionship • Pharmaceutical production • Use modern selection tools

  4. Natural Selection Tools • Mother nature uses these tools: • Starve, thirst, or freeze to death • Injury, infection, or disease • Eaten by predators • Males battle each other for mates • Harmful mutations abort or kill young • Mother nature obeys the law of the jungle

  5. Artificial Selection Tools • Animal breeders use these tools: • Specialization of breeds and lines • Fence or barn or house • Import/export of genetic material • Artificial insemination, progeny test • Embryo transfer • Marker assisted selection • Animal breeders obey economic laws

  6. Reproductive Tools

  7. Potential Future Tools • X, Y sorted semen (already in use) • Embryo splitting (some use) • Adult cloning • Transgenics • Genomic selection (main focus of research)

  8. Family Size • Progeny test • Obtain 100 daughters of each bull • Measure important traits • Select the best bulls for further use • Descendants of 1 bull (Elevation) • 80,000 daughters • 2.3 million granddaughters • 6.5 million great-granddaughters

  9. History of Traits Evaluated

  10. Trait Emphasis – Dairy Selection 100%

  11. Data Analysis • National genetic rankings (dairy) • 200 million monthly records of milk yield and other traits • 30 million×30 million relationship matrix among cows and bulls • International genetic rankings • 27 countries on 5 continents • Combined ranking done in Sweden

  12. Best BullO-Bee Manfred Justice • Semen sales 198,000 units/year • Semen price $40/unit • Income ~$30 million to date • 12,670 daughters already milking • 10,401 in United States • 590 in France, 570 in Italy, 400 in Denmark, 262 in the Netherlands, etc.

  13. Justice Daughters vs. Average Cows

  14. Computer Mating Programs • For 5 million dairy cows, mate is selected by computer programs • Inbreeding avoided using pedigrees • Carriers of same defect not mated • Weak traits of cow matched to strong traits of bull • Sires with easy birth chosen for first calf

  15. Milk Yield Progress

  16. Single Genes • Some breeds horned (TX longhorn) • Other breeds 100% polled (Angus) • Wild bulls/cows needed horns • Genetic dehorning is easy • Polled (no horn) gene is dominant • Other genes are more valuable

  17. Specialized Animals • Cattle • Dairy, not selected for meat quality • Beef, not selected for milk quality • Chickens • Layers, not selected for meat yield • Broilers, not selected for egg yield • Global use of improved varieties

  18. Breeding Companies • Poultry, swine • Closed, private breeding populations • Central control and vertical integration • Dairy, beef cattle • Open exchange of breeding stock • Producers choose using genetic rankings • Almost no patents or intellectual property

  19. Animal vs. Vegetable Food Costs$ / 50 g protein needed daily

  20. Citizens Fed/AcreData from year 2000, 1 acre = .435 hectare

  21. Conclusions • People improve the genetic merit of their animals each generation • Selection tools make fast progress • Improving animal production • Improving animal health • Animal protein is very affordable • North America has few citizens

  22. Acknowledgments • Mel Tooker, Suzanne Hubbard, and Mark McGuire suggested several improvements

  23. Picture Credits

More Related