Mating animals by minimising the covariance between ancestral contributions generates less inbreeding without compromising genetic gain in breeding schemes with truncation selection

Abstract

We reasoned that mating animals by minimising the covariance between ancestral contributions (MCAC mating) will generate less inbreeding and at least as much genetic gain as minimum-coancestry mating in breeding schemes where the animals are truncation-selected. We tested this hypothesis by stochastic simulation and compared the mating criteria in hierarchical and factorial breeding schemes, where the animals were selected based on breeding values predicted by animal-model BLUP. Random mating was included as a reference-mating criterion. We found that MCAC mating generated 4% to 8% less inbreeding than minimum-coancestry mating in the hierarchical and factorial breeding schemes without any loss in genetic gain. Moreover, it generated upto 28% less inbreeding and about 3% more genetic gain than random mating. The benefits of MCAC mating over minimum-coancestry mating are worthwhile because they can be achieved without extra costs or practical constraints. MCAC mating merely uses pedigree information to pair the animals more appropriately and is clearly a worthy alternative to minimum-coancestry mating and probably any other mating criterion. We believe, therefore, that MCAC mating should be used in breeding schemes where pedigree information is available.