Quantitative genetics: Selection of domestic animals

Duration

22h Th, 5h Mon. WS

Number of credits

Lecturer

Johann Detilleux

Language(s) of instruction

French language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the second semester

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

The main part (tronc commun) of the course is articulated on three main fields: quantitative and population genetics and genetic risk.
Population genetics seeks to explain the origin and the maintenance of genetic variability in the populations, and its importance and significance in terms of adaptation and evolution.
Quantitative genetics is the genetics of the characters with continuous variation (some exception) and with complex determinism, i.e. controlled by several genetic factors and several nongenetic factors. 
An individual's genetic risk refers to the probability of the individual carrying a specific disease-associated mutation, or of being affected with a specific genetic disorder. The calculation of genetic risk is an essential element of genetic counseling.
The topics are:   - Introduction to population genetics : law of Hardy Weinberg and extensions, evolutionary forces, co-evolution - Introduction to quantitative genetics: decomposition of the phenotypical variation of the quantitative characters, estimate of the genetic parameters and the values of breeding, calculation of the genetic profit - Strategies for genetic improvement of the domestic animals - Genetic risk assessment, Bayes theorem
 

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

At the end of the course, the student will be able of:
1. identifying when and how genes fluctuate in time, which forces make them vary and how these fluctuations may explain the mechanisms of evolution of the animal species (wild and domestic)
2. identifying data necessary to the genetic evaluation of sport and production animals, and understanding the mathematical models used in animal selection
3. to apply the concepts learned in the course to the selection domestic animals
4. Assess genetic risk in simple settings

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Knowledge necessary to the comprehension of this course is those desired of the students of third year in veterinary medicine (or the equivalent), i.e., to understand the basic concepts in genetics and statistics

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)

Course materials in on internet

Recommended or required readings

Introduction to quantitative genetics (Falconer, 1985)
Genetic improvement of cattle and sheep (Simm, 1998)
Genetics for the animal sciences (VanVelck et al., 1987)
Principles of population genetics (Hartl & Clark, 1988)
An introduction to genetic analysis (Griffiths et. al., 1998)
Introduction to Risk Calculation in Genetic Counseling (Young, 2006)
MOOC : https://www.coursesites.com/webapps/login/?new_loc=%2Fwebapps%2Fportal%2Fframeset.jsp
 

Assessment methods and criteria

At the end of course, the student will be able, individually, without the assistance of the notes:
- of solving with the necessary precision the exercises and problems referring to the course, with the assistance of a calculator,
- of understanding the illustrations (diagram, appear, graph, table, ...) of the concepts learned during the course,
- of recognizing and identifying, without any help, important concepts
- of extrapolating learned oncepts to evolutionary phenomena observed in animal populations and to method of animal breeding

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

Contacts

 Detilleux : jdetilleux@ulg.ac.be
 

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