Evolution of the sheep industry and genetic research in the United States: opportunities for convergence in the twenty‐first century

Abstract

Summary The continuous development and application of technology for genetic improvement is a key element for advancing sheep production in the United States. The US sheep industry has contracted over time but appears to be at a juncture where a greater utilization of technology can facilitate industry expansion to new markets and address inefficiencies in traditional production practices. Significant transformations include the increased value of lamb in relation to wool, and a downtrend in large‐scale operations but a simultaneous rise in small flocks. Additionally, popularity of hair breeds not requiring shearing has surged, particularly in semi‐arid and subtropical US environments. A variety of domestically developed composite breeds and newly established technological approaches are now widely available for the sheep industry to use as it navigates these ongoing transformations. These genetic resources can also address long‐targeted areas of improvement such as growth, reproduction and parasite resistance. Moderate progress in production efficiency has been achieved by producers who have employed estimated breeding values, but widespread adoption of this technology has been limited. Genomic marker panels have recently shown promise for reducing disease susceptibility, identifying parentage and providing a foundation for marker‐assisted selection. As the ovine genome is further explored and genomic assemblies are improved, the sheep research community in the USA can capitalize on new‐found information to develop and apply genetic technologies to improve the production efficiency and profitability of the sheep industry.

Whole-Genome Resequencing of Worldwide Wild and Domestic Sheep Elucidates Genetic Diversity, Introgression, and Agronomically Important Loci

“…They are essential for welfare of hundreds of millions of people living in rural communities of some Asian, African, and South American countries ( Nkedianye et al 2019 ). Since their domestication from Asiatic mouflon ∼10,000 years ago in the Near East ( Zeder 2008 ), sheep expanded to other parts of Asia ( Lv et al 2015 ; Zhao et al 2017 ) and to Europe ( Ryder 1984 ; Tapio et al 2006 ; Ciani et al 2020 ), Africa ( Bradford and Fitzhugh 1984 ; Muigai and Hanotte 2013 ), and the New World ( Crispim et al 2012 ; Campos et al 2020 ; Revelo et al 2020 ; Thorne et al 2021 ). An early and major event was the post-domestication transition of hair sheep to wool sheep ( Chessa et al 2009 ).…”

Domestication Explains Two-Thirds of Differential-Gene-Expression Variance between Domestic and Wild Animals; The Remaining One-Third Reflects Intraspecific and Interspecific Variation

“…The practical value of Belyaev’s concept has been realized in a huge collection of commercial fur colors—e.g., “Amber-gold pastel,” “Ashen,” “Beige,” “Black crystal,” “Cobalt,” “Ermine-like,” “Peach,” ““Pearl,” Platinum,” “Purple,” “Silver sable-like,” “Steel-blue,” and “Straw,”—rarely or never seen in the wild [ 6 ]. The concept’s fundamental importance has found confirmation in a large variety of breeds of dogs [ 7 ], cats [ 8 ], pigs [ 9 ], cows [ 10 ], horses [ 11 ], sheep [ 12 ], goats [ 13 ], chickens [ 14 ], ducks [ 15 ], geese [ 16 ], and other domestic animals [ 17 ] as well as in artificial shelters and additional feeding for wild animals in wildlife for saving them [ 18 ]. On the basis of Belyaev’s concept [ 1 ], a laboratory model of animal domestication by humans has been created using outbred lines of tame and aggressive rats artificially bred [ 19 ] for performance on a standard glove test [ 20 ].…”

Efficiency Analysis as a Tool for Revealing Best Practices and Innovations: The Case of the Sheep Meat Sector in Europe

“…Moreover, using high breeding value rams from elite flocks ensures efficiency and speeds up the genetic improvement process [53]. Nowadays, breeding innovations are associated mainly to the advances in molecular genetics and DNA analysis, which have boosted the development of new tools in breeding programs and to the formation of selection indexes which combine productional and functional traits [54][55][56]. However, such innovations were suggested by only 20% of the studied farms (Table 6).…”