Mating strategies with genomic information reduce rates of inbreeding in animal breeding schemes without compromising genetic gain

摘要

We tested the hypothesis that mating strategies with genomic information realise lower rates of inbreeding (AF) than with pedigree information without compromising rates of genetic gain (AG). We used stochastic simulation to compare AF and AG realisedby two mating strategies with pedigree and genomic information in five breeding schemes. The two mating strategies were minimum-coancestry mating (MC) and minimising the covariance between ancestral genetic contributions (MCAC). We also simulated randommating (RAND) as a reference point. Generations were discrete. Animals were truncation-selected for a single trait that was controlled by 2000 quantitative trait loci, and the trait was observed for all selection candidates before selection. The criterion for selection was genomic-breeding values predicted by a ridge-regression model. Our results showed that MC and MCAC with genomic information realised 6% to 22% less AF than MC and MCAC with pedigree information without compromising AG across breedingschemes. MC and MCAC realised similar AF and AG. In turn, MC and MCAC with genomic information realised 28% to 44% less AF and up to 14%o higher AG than RAND. These results indicated that MC and MCAC with genomic information are more effective than withpedigree information in controlling rates of inbreeding. This implies that genomic information should be applied to more than just prediction of breeding values in breeding schemes with truncation selection.