Activity 1: “Closer-to-Biology” Fertility
Fertility traits, as currently recorded for genetic selection purposes, are lowly heritable, and distant from the biology of the animals. Accuracies of genomic breeding values for existing fertility traits are much lower than those of other routinely measured traits, particularly because of environmental and management influences. Therefore, we aim to identify and implement new “close-to-biology” female phenotypes for fertility to enhance selection accuracy for estrous expression and embryo survival.
Activity 2: Enhanced Disease Resistance
A number of key diseases threaten dairy farming profitability for which no genomic evaluations are currently available. These include fertility disorders, Johne’s disease and calf health. We aim to improve accuracy of genetic selection for various health traits and broaden disease resistance by adding new standardized health phenotypes to the health evaluation portfolio.
Activity 3: Feed Efficiency and Methane Reduction
Genetic selection to increase feed efficiency and reduce methane emissions in dairy cows is fundamental for the economic and environmental viability of the dairy system production. We will continue to build on the success of the EDGP project and increase the size of the reference population for genomic selection of improved feed efficiency and reduced methane emission to improve animal environmental efficiency.
Activity 4: Genomic and Environmental Relationships
Within this activity, we will explore the interaction among the traits measured in Activity 1 to 3 and how they are impacted by environmental factors, including those associated with specific farm conditions. This comprehensive analysis will help us understand how these resilience traits are regulated, how they correlate with current traits in the selection index, and to perform multi-trait genome-wide association studies and meta-analysis.
Activity 5: Multi-Generational Effects and Epigenetics
Resilience depends on a multi-level interaction between the genome, the epigenome, and environmental factors. We will investigate the effect of the maternal environment of female fetuses on their future resilience as heifers and adult cows and attempt to discover epigenetic marks of dairy cattle that are related to their resilience.
Activity 6: Data management
Activity 6 will be used to collate, manage, and visualize resilience phenotype data collected in Activities 1-3, to support quantitative genomic analyses, imputation, functional analyses, and meta-genomic analyses conducted in Activity 4, and to visualize inputs from Activities 1-5 in a Genome Browser. This will help provide the infrastructure required for efficient project management, and will allow full exploitation of all data collected within the project.
Activity 7: GE3LS Research: Optimizing traits to maximize sustainability and social acceptance
The GE3LS component stands for Research on the Ethical, Environmental, Economic, Legal, and Social Aspects of Genomics. Ruminant industries are under significant pressure arising from concerns about the environmental impact of cattle and from concerns about human health. The key to understanding the potential of the resilience traits rests on behaviour of individual producers, consumers and markets. By defining the needs and values of these stakeholders, we aim to identify optimal sets of traits that maximize resilience and societal acceptance of dairy production.
Activity 8: Translation and Implementation
Through close collaboration with our national and international research and industry partners, we will facilitate the translation of project findings into practical tools and services that maximize socio-economic benefits and ensure a successful and rapid uptake for routine genomic evaluation by the Canadian dairy industry.