Conservation, Creation, and Utilization of Genetic Variation

Animal breeding aims at transforming genetic variability into the greatest possible genetic progress. Several factors have to be considered to achieve this goal. Efficient conservation of genetic variance by keeping large effective population size, and efficient utilization of newly arising variation by having an appropriate balance between selection pressure and effective size are important. There seem to be real possibilities now to artificially increase the amount of new variation generated above the level of spontaneous mutation. Induced mutation, transformation, and insertion may be used with advantage in future breeding schemes supplementing but not replacing the methods of today. The kind of utilization of the genetic variance also merits attention. Different selection strategies can lead to vastly different long-term results and also the direction of selection, indirect or direct, is important in schemes lasting several generations.