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Selection strategies utilizing genetic resources to adapt livestock to climate change
Climate change results in new challenges for livestock production and genetic adaptations are needed to avoid production losses. It is inadequate to merely store genes affecting adaptive traits in animal genetic resources. Adaptive traits must be implemented quickly within the commercial breeds or these breeds must be replaced with better adapted, possibly crossbred, populations. We performed a simulation study comparing different selection strategies applied to two subpopulations which were divergently selected for a production (PROD) or a fitness trait (FIT). The selection strategies were: 1) selection within PROD using BLUP; 2) selection within PROD using genomic selection; 3) crossbreeding between PROD and FIT using BLUP; 4) crossbreeding using genomic selection (GBLUPCB). The selection strategies resulted in different adaptive rates. GBLUPCB resulted in the quickest adaptation. However, further studies including other selection strategies and practical livestock breeding schemes are needed.
Keywords:
climate change
genetic resources
genomic selection
selection strategies
