Interpretive Summary: Detecting effective starting point of genomic selection by divergent trends from BLUP and ssGBLUP in pigs, beef cattle, and broilers 

By Anne Zinn

Genomic selection, which allows producers to preselect young animals and parents with higher  accuracy than with best linear unbiased prediction, has been widely recognized as a successful tool for genetic improvement in various livestock and plant species. However, understanding the effectiveness of genomic selection and the factors that impact it remain open ended. A paper recently published in the Journal of Animal Science aimed to find the start date of genomic selection for a set of economically important traits in pigs, Angus cattle, and broiler chickens by comparing trends obtained using best linear unbiased prediction and single-step genomic best linear unbiased prediction. 

Overall, the results of the present study indicated that the effective start of genomic selection can be detected by the divergence between genetic and Realized Mendelian sampling trends from best linear unbiased prediction and single-step genomic best linear unbiased prediction. It was shown that the difference between genetic and Realized Mendelian sampling trends from single-step genomic best linear unbiased prediction and best linear unbiased prediction was more evident in populations under more intense selection, such as pigs and broilers rather than Angus cattle. In general, the effective starting point of genomic selection can be detected by the divergence between genetic and Realized Mendelian sampling trends from best linear unbiased prediction and single-step genomic best linear unbiased prediction. The results of this study and the procedures used here can be helpful in evaluating the efficiency of the implementation of genomic selection in breeding programs moving forward.

The full paper can be found on the Journal of Animal Science webpage.