10.7 Key issues on selection and inbreeding

Mating involves finding a suitable partner among the selected parents and produce offspring.

Mating decisions have no influence on genetic improvement at population level, but may have some influence at individual level.

Compensatory mating involves finding the best mate to compensate the female’s shortcomings.

Mate selection should take into account the additive genetic relationship between the potential parents as that reflects directly the inbreeding coefficient in the intended offspring.

Unbalanced mating intensity may have irreversible consequences for the rate of inbreeding in future generations.

There is a conflict of interest between short term benefit (profit for producer and breeder) and long term cost (inbreeding related problems) of intensive use of genetically superior animals.

DNA tests can be used to confirm parentage of offspring.