14.3.1 Finding the strategy for conservation (2024)
- Tessa Jacobs
- Kor Oldenbroek
Based on the risk status of a breed different management strategies are appropriate to use the breed and to safeguard its conservation. FAO has developed a nice flowchart to find the appropriate strategy for a breed dependent on its risk status
For the breeds at risk first the value of a breed is considered: e.g. for the relationship with other breeds (is it a unique breed?), the presence of special adaptive traits, the value of its use in the society and the cultural historic value. After this consideration you may conclude that the breed is worthwhile to conserve and a conservation program will be put in place. This might be an in vivo or an in vitro conservation program.
Definitions
In vivo conservation is conservation through maintenance of live populations kept under normal farm conditions and/or inside of the area in which they evolved or are normally found.
In vitro (cryo) conservation is the storage of gametes of embryos in liquid nitrogen.
For the breeds not at risk or potentially at risk genetic improvement is still possible in breeding programs. Of course, the possibilities are limited for breeds potentially at risk, due to a low number of animals that can be used for breeding. For these breeds, conservation programs might be developed. These are breeding programs where minimizing the relatedness among parents has the first priority, instead of maximizing genetic improvement. As will be explained in detail later in conservation programs a relatively high number of sires and dams have to be selected as parents for the next generation. In conservation programs long generation intervals are not an issue and sires with semen conserved in a gene bank may be used when they appear to have a very low number of offspring in the population alive today.