Auswirkungen der genomischen Selektion auf den Zuchtfortschritt in funktionalen Merkmalen

Genomic selection in dairy cattle breeding programs improves reliabilities for functional traits. Despite previous expectations, results in literature indicate that selection response in functional traits might decrease in intense genomic breeding programs. We examined the consequences of moderate genomic breeding programs on functional traits in the Bavarian Simmental population by means of deterministic calculations. Our calculations comprised all fourteen traits of the current aggregate genotype in Bavarian Simmental. Our results show that genetic gain in protein yield can be increased by 10% assuming a realistic proportion of unproven bulls. Genomic selection in our scenarios hardly affected the expected responses in functional traits. However, some traits showed undesired responses which could be alleviated by using a different breeding goal with higher weights on functional traits.