Sustainable management of AnGR as a fundament for ” regulations ”

1. Sustainable management of AnGRas a fundamentfor ”regulations” by Erling Fimland NordGen - Farm Animals, erling.fimland@nordgen.org Forskerskolen, UMBIHA, 4.02.09

2. Introduction According to CBD, the Convention alsointended to activate GR for food production, in addition to maintain diversitywhich implies: • Sustainable management of all farm AnGR, including: • Sustainable use • Sufficient conservation • Fair and equitable sharing of benefit • Since the effective population size of commercial breeds are similar to the others, the tools and strategies become more and more close and integrated Thus, the presentation will be a broad input to discussions about sustainable management of AnGR

3. Requirements for a sustainable breeding programme • Proving effective in delivering genetic progress • Set up recording schemes to address objectives that include both primary yields and important functional traits like reproduction, health and survivals • Promoted a co-operative approach among the many institutions that need to be involved in the operations of the programme (such as breed societies, recording organisations etc.).

4. Challenges for future sustainability There are a number of challenges that breeding programmes will need to address to achieve sustainability, and those considered here are concerned with: • Genetic risk management • Environmental impact • Securing the fitness of populations • Consumer pressure.

5. 1. Genetic risk management This rate of loss of genetic variation, ΔF, is directly related to the risks encountered within the breeding programme i.e.: • The programme failing to deliver the expected rates of genetic progress, through the inherent variability of genetic change in response to selection • Encountering unexpected problems through rapid changes in the frequency of unfavourable alleles - deleterious genes and inbreeding depression in fitness traits • Negative response via genetic correlations to vital traits

6. 2. Environmental impact • Animal production is a major user of the environment with major impacts upon the landscape management and diversity • At the present, breeding goals in the EU and North America have mainly considered outputs, but a consequence of environmental regulation will be that both breeding goals and genetic evaluation will need to start considering outputs in relation to inputs. • Policies on promoting landscape diversity will encourage a range of production systems, and will begin to question the assumption that the production system will change to meet the genotype

7. Implies opportunities for • Lines that are less sensitive to the production system, so that the same genotype will perform well in several environments • A greater range of lines developed that can be used to tailor the genotype to suit the system, either using the straightbred genotype or as a crossbred

8. 3. Securing fitness The challenges for breeding programmes are several: • To implement recording of disease and fertility on a sufficient scale in conditions that are most relevant and informative for improving fitness on commercial farms • To gain a better understanding of the physiological background of reduced fitness due to metabolic stress to identify markers (physical, physiological or DNA) that can be recorded to improve selection

9. 4. Consumer pressure • The demands and aspirations of the consumers on both products and methods of production become an important consideration for those directing breeding programmes • These considerations range from environmental issues described above, to more general concerns about welfare (e.g. cages), the favouring of particular production systems and Quality • Genetic modifying products

10. Factors influencing sustainable breeding • Inbreeding, ΔF = 1/ Ne, a inverse function of theefficient numbers of the population size • Maintaining alternative breeds • Selection on a complete set of traits • Interactionbetween environment and genetic effects

11. Breeding value expression • Breeding value - individual: g = ½ gsire + ½ gdam + a = a + ½(as+ad) + (½)2(ass+ads+asd+add) + (½)3(asss+adss+asds+adds +assd+adsd+asdd+addd) ( + ………+(½)k( ……) where k approach infinite Expression is here a function of mendelian sampling terms back in 3 generations instead of the parent breeding values

12. Computation of ΔG and ΔF • Alternative way: ΔG = Σri ai - summed over all individual that contributes with genes of the present population – for r > 0 ΔF = Σri2 ri is long terms contribution from the i-th individual of ancestor for the present population of individuals (proportion of genes) and is function of elements in the A – matrix ai is each individual genetic sampling term – in additive breeding term

13. Mathematical expression Maximize ΔG with restriction of ΔF are: • Max cTg conditional of that cTAc ≤ C and QTc =1/2 1where:c is a vector of solutions for contributions or proportion of how much each of the breeding animals should contribute to the progeny generationg is a vector of BLUP-values of the selected individualsA is additive genetic relationship matrix C is the expression for the ΔF Q is coding of sex, such that sum of ci is ½ for each sex

14. 1. & 2. Tools for managing diversity • Inbreeding: • Optimal selection based on the contribution theories, the needs are equally for all breeds • Maintaining several breeds for immigration /exchange of new genes – alternative breeding populations • Conservation of breeds: • Activate properties of certain breeds for developing trademark of theirs product • Sufficient conservation to secure maintenance of important gene for future use • Conservation of historical/cultural breeds

15. 3. Sustainable breeding goal • The selection forces must encompass both sales products and cost factors like survival, diseases and reproduction traits • The economic importance of the cost factors is under estimated in a total economic evaluation (Morten Kargo Sorensen)

16. Consequence of selection force on traits; increased weight from 1990 in NRF on Mastitis Figure 5. Plot of average sire posterior mean (SPM) in the probability scale (threshold model) and mean predicted transmitting ability (BLUP-PTA) of sires by birth-year of daughters for mastitis

17. Consequence of selection force on traits; increased weight from 1990 in N.Red on Mastitisexpressed as indexes

18. Genetic change in NRR1 of Nordic Red breeds 1 NRR= None Return Rate Expressed as index units Norwegian Red Positive ΔG of such traits are dependent on sufficient selection forces

19. 4. Interaction G by E • If there is no interaction between genotype and environment or production system, exchange of genetic materials might be positive for all partners • In case of existence of this interaction, exchange of genetic materials might destroy the import farmers livingopportunity

20. Consequences of interaction • The most important factor in international exchange of genetic material is existence of this interactions • An international ”regulation” of exchange of AnGR should be focused on existences of this interaction and the consequences of what this will imply socially and economical for the receivers in the long run

21. Conclusion • Sustainability management of AnGR requires: • Centralised directives or incentives of maintaining diversity and developing sustainable management of AnGR • Decentralise responsibilities of the breeding actors for carrying outsustainable breeding • ”International rules” that respect genetic adaptations as critical function with export/import situations • National responsibility of conservation of local breeds