Sheep Industry News August 2023

evaluations. Compared to pedigree information, genomic selection captures more historic relationships between countries, because the shared ancestral history of breeds is contained within the code of an individual’s DNA. We can capitalize on this shared ancestral information captured through genotyping to improve the accuracy of selecting animals with superior genetics. For example, Dr. Luiz Brito has assessed the ability to predict genetic merit across New Zealand and Norwegian sheep, to evaluate the potential of conducting international genetic evaluations between these countries. He found that the genetic linkages between the flocks in these countries has enabled predictions of animals to be made across coun tries, with an improvement in accuracy most notably being observed for traits with a low number of phenotypic data available. One of the aims of the Sheep GEMS project – read more about that research on page 24 – is to start collecting genom ic information representative of the diversity in the American sheep industry to be used for genomic selection. As the sheep industry in the United States establishes genomic selection as a more routine practice, genomic selection practices would benefit from incorporating genomic information from other countries. This would have benefit in breeds that are con

nected to flocks in other countries – i.e., when semen has been imported from another country for artificial insemina tion in ewes from an American sheep flock. Incorporating genomic information from other countries has the potential to increase the number of individuals considered for domes tic genetic evaluations, which can improve the ability to accu rately select the superior animals in the United States. Countries that have implemented genomic selection have seen impressive progress in their production traits since implementation. The ability to rank American animals within their evaluations will enable performance benchmarking of these animals. The trade of semen between countries has the potential to boost performance in American sheep by bring ing in some of the top genetics in the world. However, this is contingent upon how well the offspring of the elite animals from those countries perform in the envi ronments in the United States. There are potential environ ments that would match between primary sheep producing countries and the United States, which holds promise for this to be used as a tool to benefit the American sheep industry. For example, Australian Merinos are managed in environ ments that are like Western range environments, providing the potential to successfully introduce these genetics in the See International Genetics Story on Page 36

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