Summary Lecture Notes

A snapshot of the summary - Lecture Notes

• 1 What is animal breeding?

• What is selective breeding?

  Only use males and females for breeding that have passed a certain quality criterion
• What is the predefined goal of animal breeding?

  To genetically improve the population in a certain direction
• What is a good definition of animal breeding?

  Animal breeding involes the selective breeding of domestic animals with the intention to improve desirable (and heritable) qualties in the next generation
• What is a trait?

  A distinguishing phenotypic charasteristic, typically belonging to an individual.
• What is a phenotype?

  That what you observe or measure on the animal for a certain trait
• What are the prerequisites for domestication?

  1 - The animals should be able to adaopt to the type of feed they are offered by humans. This may be different from what they were used to in the wild
  2 - Animal must be able to survive and reproduce in relative closed quarters of captivity. Animals that need a very large territory are not suitable to domesticated
  3 - Animals need to be naturally calm. Very skittish or flighty animals will be hard to prevent escaping
  4 - Animals need to be willing to recognise humans as their superior, which means they must have flexible social hierarchy
• What is progeny testing?

  The method of evaluating performance of the first (small) group of progeny and use that information to select the best father of future progeny
• What is a breed?

  A group of animals of a certain species that through generations of selective breeding has become uniform in performance, appearance and selection history
• What is a species?

  The largest group of animals that are capable of interbeeding and producing fertile offspring
• What is the negative correlated response?

  When selective breeding has not only improved certain performances, but simultaneously and unintendidly also deteriorated other performances that were not under selection