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Animal Breeding Methods and Sustainability

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Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology

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After domestication, animals were selected in different environments and for different traits leading to the modern breeds. Long before the appearance of the science called now as “Genetics,” animal breeding had been practiced by humans following intuitive criteria, less efficient than the scientific ones, but criteria that had provided success along many generations of selection [1]. The lack of a theory explaining inheritance slowed down animal breeding for many years, but with the rediscovery of Mendel’s rules at the beginning of the twentieth century and the development of quantitative genetics in the 1920s and 1930s, animal breeding had the tools needed for its development. Animal breeding methods were developed in the 1930s and 1940s, and the first animal breeding companies and cooperatives started in using scientific methods for animal selection [2]. The development of artificial insemination in cattle in the 1940s and frozen semen in the 1950s led to...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Animal Science and Technology, Universitat Politècnica de València, València, Spain

    Agustin Blasco

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  1. Agustin Blasco
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Correspondence to Agustin Blasco .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ramtech Ltd., Larkspur, CA, USA

    Robert A. Meyers

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Animal Science, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Matthew L. Spangler

Glossary

Breed

A population of animals with common morphological characteristics that is recognized as a breed by the administration, by a breeders’ association, or by other groups of people.

Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP)

It is the most common statistical method used in breeding evaluations. A version of the method including genetic markers is known as G-BLUP.

Quantitative Trait Locus (QTL)

A gene having influence on a quantitative trait.

Markers

Fragments of the DNA molecule for which their position is known.

Genomic Selection

Statistical method used in breeding evaluations that includes phenotypic data of animals and genetic markers.

Response to Selection

Genetic progress.

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Blasco, A. (2022). Animal Breeding Methods and Sustainability. In: Meyers, R.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2493-6_333-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2493-6_333-3

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