An Australian sheep genomic reference to meet the evolving breeding objectives of industry

Abstract

<p>The Australian sheep industry has used genomically enhanced breeding values since 2012. The ability to incorporate genomic information was only made possible by industry investment in a national genomic reference. Initiated in 2007, the Sheep CRC Information Nucleus Flock and its later incarnation the MLA Resource Flock has provided growth, carcase, and wool phenotypes on ~40k genotyped individuals across Merino, Terminal and Maternal breed types. Australian Wool Innovation's Merino Lifetime Productivity project and the Australian Merino Sire Evaluation sites also provided valuable data for the Merino breed. By maintaining a successful genomic reference that directly contributes to the national genetic evaluation producers were shown the direct value of genotyping. Currently, across the core national Sheep Genetic analyses, there are over 500k genotyped animals from industry and research contributing to the evaluation. As a result, the genomic reference is expanding beyond the research population and the role of industry levies to fund the reference population is declining. Future funding will depend on co-investment by breeders beyond levy contributions, with investment dependent on breeders perceiving value in a genomic reference. New and hard to measure traits continue to require recording in research flocks. Consequently, the next iteration of the resource flock will focus on underrepresented and future traits of importance. Providing the core population for the recording of methane and feed intake as well as resilience and maternal behaviour traits. The role of the reference population can be further enhanced by creating stronger linkages between different maternal and Merino ram sources, needed for prediction of breeding values across breed types and of crossbred animals. This would achieve more reliable genomic prediction reliability for key traits such as reproduction and meat eating quality across the commercial breeding flocks.</p>