Search results for "Animal Breeding"

Ancient pigs reveal a near-complete genomic turnover following their introduction to Europe

2019

International audience; Archaeological evidence indicates that pig domestication had begun by ∼10,500 y before the present (BP) in the Near East, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggests that pigs arrived in Europe alongside farmers ∼8,500 y BP. A few thousand years after the introduction of Near Eastern pigs into Europe, however, their characteristic mtDNA signature disappeared and was replaced by haplotypes associated with European wild boars. This turnover could be accounted for by substantial gene flow from local Euro-pean wild boars, although it is also possible that European wild boars were domesticated independently without any genetic contribution from the Near East. To test these hyp…

New insights on water buffalo genomic diversity and post-domestication migration routes from medium density SNP chip data

2018

Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-11T16:52:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2018-03-02 The domestic water buffalo is native to the Asian continent but through historical migrations and recent importations, nowadays has a worldwide distribution. The two types of water buffalo, i.e., river and swamp, display distinct morphological and behavioral traits, different karyotypes and also have different purposes and geographical distributions. River buffaloes from Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Mozambique, Brazil and Colombia, and swamp buffaloes from China, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Brazil were genotyped with a species-specific medium-dens…

Proceedings of the ASPA 18th Congress, Palermo, June 9-12, 2009

2009

Loss of density-dependence and incomplete control by dominant breeders in a territorial species with density outbreaks

2011

Abstract Background A territory as a prerequisite for breeding limits the maximum number of breeders in a given area, and thus lowers the proportion of breeders if population size increases. However, some territorially breeding animals can have dramatic density fluctuations and little is known about the change from density-dependent processes to density-independence of breeding during a population increase or an outbreak. We suggest that territoriality, breeding suppression and its break-down can be understood with an incomplete-control model, developed for social breeders and social suppression. Results We studied density dependence in an arvicoline species, the bank vole, known as a terri…

Morpho-physiological and adaptive variation of Italian germplasm of sulla (Hedysarum coronarium L.)

2014

Sulla is a biennial forage legume native to the central-western Mediterranean Basin and has increasing interest for regions with Mediterranean-climate. The Italian germplasm is a reservoir of variation for important agronomic traits. This study aimed to support breeding programs by investigating patterns of agronomic, adaptive and morpho-physiological variation among ecotypes collected from the three main Italian regions of species cultivation: central Italy, and the two islands of Sicily and Sardinia. Forage yield and morpho-physiological traits were evaluated at a site with Mediterranean climate in Sicily. Forage yield and cold tolerance in a cold-prone site of northern Italy were also as…

Immune-mediated change in the expression of a sexual trait predicts offspring survival in the wild.

2011

9 pages; International audience; BACKGROUND: The "good genes" theory of sexual selection postulates that females choose mates that will improve their offspring's fitness through the inheritance of paternal genes. In spite of the attention that this hypothesis has given rise to, the empirical evidence remains sparse, mostly because of the difficulties of controlling for the many environmental factors that may covary with both the paternal phenotype and offspring fitness. Here, we tested the hypothesis that offspring sired by males of a preferred phenotype should have better survival in an endangered bird, the houbara bustard (Chlamydotis undulata undulata). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We…

Pig domestication and human-mediated dispersal in western Eurasia revealed through ancient DNA and geometric morphometrics.

2013

Zooarcheological evidence suggests that pigs were domesticated in Southwest Asia ∼8,500 BC. They then spread across the Middle and Near East and westward into Europe alongside early agriculturalists. European pigs were either domesticated independently or more likely appeared so as a result of admixture between introduced pigs and European wild boar. As a result, European wild boar mtDNA lineages replaced Near Eastern/Anatolian mtDNA signatures in Europe and subsequently replaced indigenous domestic pig lineages in Anatolia. The specific details of these processes, however, remain unknown. To address questions related to early pig domestication, dispersal, and turnover in the Near East, we …

Tracking Five Millennia of Horse Management with Extensive Ancient Genome Time Series

2019

Summary Horse domestication revolutionized warfare and accelerated travel, trade, and the geographic expansion of languages. Here, we present the largest DNA time series for a non-human organism to date, including genome-scale data from 149 ancient animals and 129 ancient genomes (≥1-fold coverage), 87 of which are new. This extensive dataset allows us to assess the modern legacy of past equestrian civilizations. We find that two extinct horse lineages existed during early domestication, one at the far western (Iberia) and the other at the far eastern range (Siberia) of Eurasia. None of these contributed significantly to modern diversity. We show that the influence of Persian-related horse …

GeneticParameters for Milk Somatic Cell Score and Relationships with Production Traits in Primparous Dairy Sheep

2007

A total of 13,066 first-lactation test-day records of 2,277 Valle del Belice ewes from 17 flocks were used to estimate genetic parameters for somatic cell scores (SCS) and milk production traits, using a repeatability test-day animal model. Heritability estimates were low and ranged from 0.09 to 0.14 for milk, fat, and protein yields, and contents. For SCS, the heritability of 0.14 was relatively high. The repeatabilities were moderate and ranged from 0.29 to 0.47 for milk production traits. The repeatability for SCS was 0.36. Flock-test-day explained a large proportion of the variation for milk production traits, but it did not have a big effect on SCS. The genetic correlations of fat and …

Effects of different simplified milk recording methods on genetic evaluation with Test-Day animal model

2007

The aims of the present study were to compare estimated breeding values (EBV) for milk yield using different testing schemes with a test-day animal model and to evaluate the effect of different testing schemes on the ranking of top sheep. Alternative recording schemes that use less information than that currently obtained with a monthly test-day schedule were employed to estimate breeding values. A random regression animal mixed model that used a spline function of days in milk was fitted. EBVs obtained with alternative recording schemes showed different degrees of Spearman correlation with EBVs obtained using the monthly recording scheme. These correlations ranged from 0.77 to 0.92. A redu…