Optimising fertility in British broiler breeder flocks

优化英国肉种鸡群的繁殖力

• 批准号: BB/L009587/1
• 负责人: Tommaso Pizzari
• 金额: $ 52.9万
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2014 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FL009587%2F1
• 关键词: Optimising; fertility; British; broiler; breeder

Resolving the mechanisms underpinning patterns of variation in fertility is one of the major outstanding challenges in Biology, and a key challenge in livestock production, where breeding for increasing efficiency of resource use has drastic knock-on effects on fertility rates. Fertility is a key determinant of profitability in commercial broiler breeder operations, and remains a considerable limiting factor in broiler productivity in the UK. Marginal (~1%) reductions in fertility cost the poultry industry millions of pounds annually, so the economic benefits of optimizing fertility are obvious. High flock fertility can also be associated with increased bird welfare. As one of the world's premier broiler breeding companies, Aviagen Ltd is a major supplier of grandparent broiler breeder stock to UK industry and globally. The Aviagen breeding program seeks to optimise a range of traits related to reproduction, health, production, environmental impact, robustness, food security, welfare, sustainability, and involves the assessment of >1,000,000 chickens annually. Key to Aviagen's balanced breeding goal is a strong focus to improve reproductive performance, by determining factors underpinning variation in fertility. Variation in broiler fertility has multiple sources: our preliminary analysis of 18 recent Aviagen broiler breeder flocks reveals significant fertility variation across different flocks, within flocks across different individuals, and within individuals as they age over time. This trend is reflected on a national scale. The European Ross 308 breeder (the major UK broiler breed supplied by Aviagen) has a 40-week target hatchability of 83%, but shows large variation in hatchability across UK flocks. While measures to improve fertility can be adopted, such as assisting flocks with replacement males, these measures are not always cost-efficient or effective. Clearly, fertility in broiler breeders has a complex, multifactorial nature, which can only be resolved by simultaneously considering multiple proximate behavioural, physiological and genetic mechanisms. Improved understanding of these correlated factors offers the opportunity for developing new selection and management tools to optimize genetic progress, bird management and thus animal balance and welfare. Key to this pluralistic approach is an understanding of the evolutionary significance of fertility-related traits, and theway these have changed in broiler chickens through domestication and selection. Here, we propose a Stand Alone LINK research grant, which seeks to resolve the mechanisms underpinning infertility in British broiler breeder commercial stocks, which capitalizes on the synergistic combination of the expertise of TP's lab in the evolutionary ecology of chicken reproductive behaviour and fertility dynamics, and Aviagen research infrastructure and resources and extensive expertise of broiler breeder production and fertility in the UK. Three factors make this project particularly novel and robust. First, a novel automated genotyping technique recently developed by Aviagen, which enables high-throughput, real time parallel parentage assignment in pedigree broiler breeder flocks. Second, a series of quantitative tools and immune-physiological assays newly developed by TP's lab to study fertility at multiple levels, from the social structure of entire populations to in vitro molecular interactions. Third, a well-established partnership between TP and Aviagen through a CASE PhD scholarship, which is generating substantial preliminary results that inform the hypotheses and approaches proposed. We aim to harness these breakthroughs to identify the causes of variation in fertility in Aviagen broiler breeder stocks at three integrated levels: (1) social mechanisms, (2) inherent male or female factors, and (3) male*female incompatibilities.

解决生育力变化模式的基础机制是生物学中的主要突出挑战之一，也是畜牧业生产中的一个关键挑战，其中提高资源利用效率的育种对生育率产生了强烈的连锁反应。生育力是商业化肉鸡育种运营盈利能力的关键决定因素，并且仍然是英国肉鸡生产力的一个重要限制因素。生育率的边际（~1%）降低每年使家禽业损失数百万英镑，因此优化生育率的经济效益是显而易见的。高繁殖力也可以与增加鸟类福利。作为世界领先的肉鸡育种公司之一，安伟捷有限公司是英国和全球范围内祖父母代肉用种鸡的主要供应商。安伟捷育种计划旨在优化与繁殖、健康、生产、环境影响、稳健性、食品安全、福利和可持续性相关的一系列性状，每年对超过1，000，000只鸡进行评估。安伟捷平衡育种目标的关键是通过确定影响生育力变异的因素来提高繁殖性能。肉鸡生育力的差异有多个来源：我们对最近18个安伟捷肉种鸡群的初步分析显示，不同鸡群之间、不同个体之间的鸡群内以及随着时间的推移个体内的生育力存在显著差异。这一趋势在全国范围内得到反映。欧洲罗斯308种鸡（安伟捷提供的英国主要肉鸡品种）的40周目标孵化率为83%，但在英国鸡群中孵化率差异很大。虽然可以采取提高生育率的措施，例如帮助鸡群补充雄性，但这些措施并不总是具有成本效益或有效。很明显，肉鸡育种者的生育能力具有复杂的多因素性质，这只能通过同时考虑多个接近的行为，生理和遗传机制来解决。对这些相关因素的进一步了解为开发新的选择和管理工具提供了机会，以优化遗传进展，鸟类管理，从而优化动物平衡和福利。这种多元方法的关键是理解生育力相关性状的进化意义，以及这些性状在肉鸡中通过驯化和选择而发生变化的方式。在这里，我们提出了一个独立的LINK研究基金，旨在解决英国肉鸡育种商业库存不育的基础机制，利用TP实验室在鸡繁殖行为和生育动力学的进化生态学方面的专业知识，以及安伟捷研究基础设施和资源以及英国肉鸡育种生产和生育力的广泛专业知识的协同组合。三个因素使这个项目特别新颖和强大。首先，Aviagen最近开发了一种新的自动化基因分型技术，该技术能够在纯种肉鸡育种群中进行高通量、真实的时间平行亲子鉴定。第二，TP实验室新开发的一系列定量工具和免疫生理学检测，用于研究多层次的生育能力，从整个人群的社会结构到体外分子相互作用。第三，TP和安伟捷之间通过CASE博士奖学金建立了良好的合作关系，产生了大量的初步结果，为提出的假设和方法提供了信息。我们的目标是利用这些突破，在三个综合层面上确定安伟捷肉种鸡繁殖力变化的原因：（1）社会机制，（2）内在的雄性或雌性因素，（3）雄性 * 雌性不相容性。

项目成果

Related male Drosophila melanogaster reared together as larvae fight less and sire longer lived daughters.

• DOI: 10.1002/ece3.1549
• 发表时间: 2015-07
• 期刊: Ecology and evolution
• 影响因子: 2.6
• 作者: Carazo P;Perry JC;Johnson F;Pizzari T;Wigby S
• 通讯作者: Wigby S

Female novelty and male status dynamically modulate ejaculate expenditure and seminal fluid proteome over successive matings in red junglefowl

• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-41336-5
• 发表时间: 2019-04-10
• 期刊: SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
• 影响因子: 4.6
• 作者: Alvarez-Fernandez, Aitor;Borziak, Kirill;Pizzari, Tommaso
• 通讯作者: Pizzari, Tommaso

Disentangling the causes of temporal variation in the opportunity for sexual selection.

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-36536-7
• 发表时间: 2023-02-22
• 期刊: NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
• 影响因子: 16.6
• 作者: Carleial, Romulo;Pizzari, Tommaso;Richardson, David S.;McDonald, Grant C.
• 通讯作者: McDonald, Grant C.

The Seminal fluid proteome of the polyandrous Red junglefowl offers insights into the molecular basis of fertility, reproductive ageing and domestication.

• DOI: 10.1038/srep35864
• 发表时间: 2016-11-02
• 期刊: Scientific reports
• 影响因子: 4.6
• 作者: Borziak K;Álvarez-Fernández A;L Karr T;Pizzari T;Dorus S
• 通讯作者: Dorus S

Male relatedness and familiarity are required to modulate male-induced harm to females in Drosophila.

调节果蝇中雄性对雌性造成的伤害需要雄性相关性和熟悉性。

• DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.0441
• 发表时间: 2017-08-16
• 期刊: Proceedings. Biological sciences
• 作者: Le Page S;Sepil I;Flintham E;Pizzari T;Carazo P;Wigby S
• 通讯作者: Wigby S