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10 Years of Genomic Selection: What’s Next? 30-SEP-2019 It was ten years ago, in August 2009, that genomic evaluations were first officially published in Canada. This started with the Holstein breed but the same technology was later also applied in the Jersey, Ayrshire, Brown Swiss and Guernsey breeds. Let’s take a quick look at how genomics has changed dairy cattle selection, its impact on genetic improvement and contemplate what’s next on the horizon. Bull Selection and Usage Almost immediately when genomics was introduced, the A.I. companies around the world were seemingly forced to embrace it. Given the intense competition between organizations, as soon as any had decided to aggressively use genomic selection, they needed to as well to stay in business. The science showed that genomics was not a “fade” and technology had advanced to a point where DNA could finally be used for genetic selection in dairy cattle. The biggest advantage that genomics provided to A.I. companies, was the increased accuracy of genetic information available prior to making any bull purchasing decisions. Also, genomics allowed for the use of younger sires and dams as the parents of the next generation of young bulls, without much sacrifice in accuracy. Together, this translated to an unprecedented annual rate of increase in the average genetic merit of young bulls entering A.I. throughout North America, which now exceeds 120 LPI points and $200 Pro$ per year. With such a continuous year over year boost in the genetic makeup of genomic young sires offered through A.I. companies, these bulls now represent two-thirds of the total semen market share in Canada. Increased Genetic Progress A direct and very significant outcome of having genomic evaluations for the past ten years is the impact on the increased rate of genetic progress. Figure 1 shows this impact very clearly since the steady rate of annual gain before genomics, which was 46 LPI points and $79 Pro$ per year, suddenly switched after 2009. During the past five years, the average rate of genetic gain has increased by 2.2 fold, reaching 102 LPI points and $180 Pro$ annually. The dashed lines since 2009 in Figure 1 reflect the expected genetic progress that would have been achieved for both LPI and Pro$ in Canadian Holsteins if genomics had not been introduced. Of equal, or perhaps even greater, importance than these realized gains for LPI and Pro$ is the impact that genomics has had on genetic progress achieved for individual traits as shown in Figure 2. The first key point to notice is that positive genetic gain is now being realized for all of the major production, conformation and functional traits in addition to Pro$, LPI and its three components. Before genomics, in addition to losing ground for Daughter Fertility, Persistency, Milking Temperament and the Health & Fertility component of LPI, very little genetic progress was being made for other traits including Fat and Protein Deviations, Milking Speed, Daughter Calving Ability and Metabolic Disease Resistance. For all of the other eleven traits in Figure 2, the average rate of genetic gain realized with genomics has increased two-fold. The truly amazing outcome now known is that genomics provides an unprecedented opportunity to realize selection objectives for lower heritability traits even if they have negative genetic correlations with traits of moderate or higher heritability.
Figure 4: Adoption of Heifer Genotyping by Year of Birth for Registered Holsteins in Canada A Crystal Ball The implementation of genomic evaluations and the use of genomic selection have only just started to impact dairy cattle improvement strategies in Canada and globally. Given the experience with genomic selection over the past ten years, looking into a crystal ball towards the future, one can expect to see the following over the next ten years:
Needless to say, we are still at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the impact that genomics and DNA genotypes will ultimately have on the dairy cattle industry. Author:
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