Accelerating Genetic Gain in Animal Production

Flashcards based on lecture notes on accelerating genetic gain in animal production.

What is the 'flow of information' in animal breeding?

Artificial selection manipulates this to improve animal products for human demand.

What is NRM in the context of animal breeding?

Detailed pedigrees to inform breeding decisions.

What is the purpose of SNP molecular data (GRM)?

They're used to characterize genetics in animals.

What are the three main branches of animal agricultural science?

Nutrition, genetics, and breeding.

In broilers, how much of the improvement in growth rate is attributable to genetics?

Genetics is responsible for about 90% of the improvement.

What factors contribute to genetic progress in broilers?

Short generation time, highly heritable traits, intensive industries, good phenotype records.

What is the aim of breeding in animal genetics?

To bring together favorable alleles as quickly as possible.

What are the limitations of selecting parents purely on phenotype?

It might overlook parents with good genetics but poor phenotype and vice versa.

How can bulls carry favorable alleles for milk production even if they don't express the phenotype?

A bull contributes 50% of the genetics, even without expressing the phenotype.

What is a pedigree in animal breeding?

Visual 'tree like' representations that demonstrate how alleles are passed down generations in the context of phenotypes of interest.

What is a Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL)?

A locus or segment of DNA that correlates with variation of a (continuous) quantitative trait in the phenotype of a population.

How are QTL mapped?

Identifying which molecular markers correlate with the expression of a trait.

What is a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP)?

Variation at a specific nucleotide position in the genome.

What is the impact of Molecular EBV?

Doubled the rate of genetic gain in intensive production industries.

What are DNA SNP chips bonded to?

Oligos.

How related are parent offspring relationships?

Are always 50% (or 0.5) as you receive exactly half your autosomal material from each parent.

What do mutations likely to influence a phenotype change?

Protein coding sequence, promoter sequence, intronic sequences, etc.

What is the genetic architecture of horned vs polled cattle?

Simple genetic architecture, one or a few gene(s) responsible, Mendelian inheritance pattern

What can you determine using probabilities in a Punnett square?

Determine offspring genotypes and frequencies.

Name some examples of Non-Mendelian Inheritance.

Incomplete dominance, co-dominance, Genetic linkage, Multiple alleles, Epistasis, Sex linked inheritance, Extranuclear inheritance, Polygenic traits, Genomic imprinting