Why and How to Switch to Genomic Selection: Lessons From Plant and Animal Breeding Experience

Aline Fugeray-Scarbel (1) , Catherine Bastien (2) , Mathilde Dupont-Nivet (3) , Stéphane Lemarié (1)

1 GAEL - Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquée de Grenoble
2 BioForA - Biologie intégrée pour la valorisation de la diversité des Arbres et de la Forêt
3 GABI - Génétique Animale et Biologie Intégrative

The present study is a transversal analysis of the interest in genomic selection for plant and animal species. It focuses on the arguments that may convince breeders to switch to genomic selection. The arguments are classified into three different “bricks.” The first brick considers the addition of genotyping to improve the accuracy of the prediction of breeding values. The second consists of saving costs and/or shortening the breeding cycle by replacing all or a portion of the phenotyping effort with genotyping. The third concerns population management to improve the choice of parents to either optimize crossbreeding or maintain genetic diversity. We analyse the relevance of these different bricks for a wide range of animal and plant species and sought to explain the differences between species according to their biological specificities and the organization of breeding programs.

Mots clés: prediction accuracy; duration of breeding cycle; selection intensity; breeder’s equation; breeding organization; breeding program; selection costs; Mendelian sampling

Domaines: Génétique animale; Génétique des plantes; Amélioration des plantes; Zootechnie

Aline Fugeray-Scarbel, Catherine Bastien, Mathilde Dupont-Nivet, Stéphane Lemarié. Why and How to Switch to Genomic Selection: Lessons From Plant and Animal Breeding Experience. Frontiers in Genetics, 2021, 12 (July), pp.629737. ⟨10.3389/fgene.2021.629737⟩. ⟨hal-03286882⟩