Author: Luigi Guarino

I feel maybe yesterday’s Nibble on the definition of a “breed” may have been a bit too laconic, even for me. So let me give a bit more context.

The link was to a YouTube playlist, which was described thus (link added):

The presentations in this playlist are from the webinar on “Genomic assessment of genetic variation and the future of the breed concept”, originally held on 12.12.2024 under the umbrella of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). This represents the culmination of collaborative work by a diverse group of experts from institutions from all around the world to prepare materials for a sub-chapter in the upcoming 3rd Report on the State of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

It amounts to over an hour of talks, but if I had to summarize the point the playlist is making, it is that genomics is redefining a breed as a fluid, porous, genotypically-characterized population rather than a fixed, pedigree-based, phenotypic entity. Thus, it is shifting livestock conservation from saving labels (“Breed A”) to preserving genetic options.

Here’s a handy table I came up with to describe the change:

Interesting to juxtapose this to the post a few days ago on how to value and use Indigenous knowledge to solve today’s problems. Would Indigenous livestock keepers necessarily care about those genetic options more than their traditional breed?

It would be great to hear from people engaged in livestock conservation on this. It’s unfortunately not a community I interact with much.