A Novel Application of Genomic Information in a Duck Breeding Programme

“随着世界人口的增加，全球对高质量、可持续动物蛋白的需求持续增长。无论是在发达国家还是发展中国家，禽肉都将成为世界上最受欢迎的肉类来源，提供负担得起、优质和安全的动物蛋白来源，约占所有动物蛋白的35%（粮农组织，2017年）。Cherry Valley Farms是一家位于英国的北京肉鸭养殖公司，主要向世界各地出口肉鸭。虽然在英国和欧洲，鸭的生产规模小于鸡，但在迅速扩大的中国市场，鸭在家禽生产和消费中占很大比例。为了使英国的鸭养殖业能够进一步提高生产具有成本效益、可持续发展和福利友好型鸭肉的能力，我们打算在我们的常规育种计划中引入基因组信息的使用。在CVF中引入基因组信息有两个主要目的：（i）跟踪我们选择计划中使用的鸭子的亲子关系;及（ii）使我们能够评估基因组选择在育种计划中的有效性。亲子鉴定的实施将使我们能够将多只雄性和雌性鸟类放在一起，以表达自然行为，帮助我们更好地保持遗传多样性，提高鸡群的繁殖性能，从而降低客户购买日龄鸭的成本。基因组选择的引入旨在提高遗传价值预测的准确性，从而加速遗传进步，从而更快地改善健康，福利，肉类质量和生产的整体效率，以减少该行业的环境足迹。基因组选择已应用于许多商业动物物种，研究表明，在育种计划中选择反应具有显著影响。为了确保CVF能够实现这一雄心勃勃的项目，将基因组信息应用到其常规育种计划中，我们将与罗斯林研究所（RI）合作。RI是世界领先的基因组学和数量遗传学应用于农场动物育种的研究中心，与工业界合作有着广泛的记录。CVF和RI将共同开发和实施基因组信息到CVF的成功育种计划中。这些发展将对CVF产生深远的影响，并由于其市场份额，通过全球鸭供应链作为一个整体。"

"The global demand for high quality, sustainable animal protein continues to rise as the world's population increases. Poultry meat is now set to become the world's favourite meat source, both in developed and developing countries, providing an affordable, quality and safe source of animal protein and account for around 35% of all animal protein (FAO, 2017). Cherry Valley Farms (CVF) is a UK based market leading Pekin meat duck breeding company, exporting breeding stock all over the world. Although duck production is of smaller scale to the chicken in the UK and Europe, it forms a large proportion of poultry production and consumption in the rapidly expanding Chinese market. To enable the duck breeding industry in the UK to further enhance its ability to produce cost effective, sustainable and welfare friendly duck meat, we intend to introduce the use of genomic information into our routine breeding programme.The introduction of genomic information to CVF serves two major purposes (i) to track parentage of the ducks used in our selection programme; and (ii) enable us to assess the effectiveness of genomic selection in our breeding programme. The implementation of parentage assignment will enable us to house multiple male and female birds together to allow the expression of natural behaviour, help us better maintain genetic diversity, improve the reproductive performance of flocks, thereby reducing the costs of day old ducks to our customers. The introduction of genomic selection aims to improve the accuracy of prediction of genetic merit, which in turn accelerates the genetic progress achieved to translate in faster gains in improving health, welfare, meat quality and the overall efficiency of production to reduce the environmental footprint of the industry. Genomic selection has been applied to many commercial animal species and research has demonstrated a significant impact on selection response in breeding programmes.In order to ensure CVF is able to deliver this ambitious project to implement genomic information into its routine breeding programme we will partner with the Roslin Institute (RI). RI is the world's leading research centre in the application of genomics and quantitative genetics to farm animal breeding having an extensive track record working with industry. Together CVF and RI will develop and implement genomic information into CVF's successful breeding programme. The developments will have far reaching implications for CVF and, as a result of their market penetrance, through global duck supply chain as a whole."