More efficient breeding systems for controlling inbreeding and effective size in animal populations

Abstract

A selection scheme and a mating scheme are proposed to control the inbreeding and genetic drift in conserved or control animal populations with different numbers of males and females. Recurrence equations for the inbreeding coefficient and formulae for effective size are derived for autosomal loci, sex-linked loci with males being heterogametic and sex-linked loci with females being heterogametic under each of four breeding systems. It is shown that both the selection scheme and the mating scheme proposed in this paper could increase the effective size and decrease inbreeding in any generation compared with the classical selection and mating schemes. Among the four breeding systems considered, the most efficient one could increase the effective size by as much as 19 per cent for autosomal loci and 50 per cent for sex-linked loci in comparison with the classical breeding system usually utilized in conserved or control populations.