Breeding Sustainable Beef Cows: Reducing Weight and Increasing Productivity
Warren M Snelling1, R Mark Thallman1, Matthew L Spangler2
1USDA-ARS, US Meat Animal Research Center, Clay Center, NE 68933, USA.
Animals : an Open Access Journal From MDPI
|July 27, 2022
Summary
Sustainable beef production requires understanding cow traits. This study analyzed cow weight and cumulative weight weaned, finding that breeding should focus on reducing cow weight and maintaining heterosis for improved sustainability.
Area of Science:
- Animal Genetics
- Sustainable Agriculture
- Beef Production Systems
Background:
- Sustainable beef production programs are developing, but the specific role of beef cows requires further definition.
- Cow weight (CW) and cumulative weight weaned (WtW) are key traits for sustainability, influencing nutrient requirements, methane emissions, reproductive performance, and animal welfare.
Purpose of the Study:
- To characterize beef cows for traits related to sustainability: cow weight (CW) and cumulative weight weaned (WtW).
- To evaluate the genetic architecture of CW and WtW using genomic data in a crossbred population.
Main Methods:
- Utilized random regression models and genomic restricted maximum likelihood (REML) analyses.
- Included additive and dominance genetic components with relationships derived from imputed genotypes of over 181,000 variants.
- Analyzed data from a crossbred population representing 18 breeds involved in US national cattle evaluations.
Main Results:
- Additive heritability was high for CW (0.57) and low for WtW (0.11).
- Dominance heritability was low for CW (0.02) and high for WtW (0.19).
- Identified significant genetic variants associated with CW and WtW, often overlapping with known quantitative trait loci (QTL) for production, reproduction, and soundness traits.
Conclusions:
- Breeding strategies for sustainable beef cows should prioritize reducing CW through selection and enhancing WtW via mate selection to maintain heterosis and minimize homozygosity.
- High WtW and moderate CW cows exhibited greater heterosis and reduced runs of homozygosity, indicating potential for improved sustainability.
Related Concept Videos
01:59Plant Breeding and Biotechnology
19.7K
Crop cultivation has a long history in human civilization, with records showing the cultivation of cereal plants beginning at around 8000 BC. This early plant breeding was developed primarily to provide a steady supply of food.
19.7K
01:08Cloning of Dolly the Sheep
4.5K
The first successfully cloned mammal was Dolly, a sheep, born on 5th July 1996 at Roslin Institute, Scotland. The cloned sheep was named after the American singer Dolly Parton. Dolly lived for seven years and died of respiratory complications, which is speculated to be due to the actual age of her DNA. Because the DNA in cloned cells belongs to an older individual, the cloned individual’s life expectancy may be affected. Indeed, analysis of Dolly’s DNA revealed shorter...
4.5K
00:51Energy Budgets
9.7K
Organisms must balance energy intake with the energy required for growth, maintenance and reproduction. These trade-offs result in a variety of survivorship and reproductive strategies, including semelparity and iteroparity. Semelparous species, like annual plants, have only one reproductive episode in their lifetimes and consequently have short lifespans. Iteroparous species, by contrast, have many reproductive events during their lifetimes but have relatively few offspring. These two...
9.7K
01:43Sustainable Development
13.5K
As the human population continues to grow and use resources, we must be mindful of our planet’s natural limits. Sustainable development provides a pathway to maintain and improve human life now while also ensuring that future generations will have the resources that they need. The long-term success of sustainability efforts rests on understanding the interplay between human actions and ecological systems.
13.5K
01:57Adaptations that Reduce Water Loss
26.2K
Though evaporation from plant leaves drives transpiration, it also results in loss of water. Because water is critical for photosynthetic reactions and other cellular processes, evolutionary pressures on plants in different environments have driven the acquisition of adaptations that reduce water loss.
26.2K