Breeding is the application of genetic concepts to promote desirable attributes in animal husbandry, horticulture, and agriculture.
Several plants were improved by ancient agriculturists through selective cultivation.
Modern plant breeding centres recommend that only pollen from the chosen male parent be carried on to the chosen female parent.
Animal breeding entails determining the appropriate attribute (such as high milk output or fine wool), breeding stock, and detailing the breeding method (for example, inbreeding, and crossbreeding).
This is the biological definition of a breed.
Breeding with care
Definition of a Selective Breed Biology
Selective breeding is defined as a method of controlling the breeding of organisms in order to eradicate or exhibit a specific trait. Artificial selection is used in this sort of breeding to direct genetic transfer of desirable features.
Selective breeding, as opposed to natural selection, concentrates on features that will benefit people.
What is Inbreeding, Exactly?
Inbreeding is the practice of breeding closely related animals over many generations. It boosts the offspring’s homozygosity.
The state of having homozygous alleles is referred to as homozygosity. Inbreeding can thus be employed to keep pure lines. As a result, it is a selective breeding approach.
Inbreeding happens spontaneously in banded mongoose, bed bugs, common fruit fly, and other animals. Inbreeding is utilised in domestic animals to maintain desirable features across several generations.
In addition to selective breeding, there are two basic types of interbreeding: selfing and backcrossing. Both male and female sex cells of the same organism fuse together during selfing or self-breeding.
Backcrossing occurs when one of the offspring is bred with one of its parents or with a genetically similar organism to the parent. Inbreeding raises the likelihood of harmful or recessive characteristics affecting offspring. The biggest disadvantage of inbreeding is this.
Definition of Outbreeding
Outcrossing, often known as outbreeding, is a breeding strategy that involves unrelated species. Outbreeding increases the variety of a group of organisms by combining the features of multiple pure breeds.
Outbreeding occurs when individuals from two populations of the same genus breed. Outbreeding produces more heterozygous allele combinations in the offspring, randomly mixing all of the population’s alleles.
Outbreeding depression is the main consequence of outbreeding, in which inappropriate characteristics for the current habitat are created, lowering environmental fitness.
Inbreeding and Outbreeding Have Certain Similarities
- Mating procedures that create offspring in animals include inbreeding and outbreeding
- Inbreeding and outbreeding both have their benefits
Overview of Selective Breeding
Recognizing some desirable qualities and discovering two members of a species who exhibit those characteristics are both part of the process.
Then, a series of breedings or matings between the individuals with the desired features is carried out in order to produce offspring that exhibit the feature and can be employed in future matings.
The desirable phenotypic features are subsequently handed down through the generations via the parents’ DNA.
Inbreeding can raise the prevalence of undesirable traits that might cause inherited health problems, while selective breeding can increase the prevalence of desirable features by raising the frequency of favourable genes in the gene pool.
In his book “On the Origin of Species,” Charles Darwin created the term “artificial selection” to describe how humans have mimicked natural selection through selective breeding.
Darwin observed that the processes affecting population change were the same, but instead of organisms adapting to their surroundings, human wants might drive artificial selection.
Because adaptive features can be neglected, this frequently results in a loss in the fitness of organisms.
Dogs that have been Selectively Bred
Humans have selectively bred all modern canines over thousands of years.
Dogs were derived from the common ancestor of the grey wolf (Canis Lupus), which was domesticated by the people with whom it shared close quarters.
Although all modern dogs have been bred for different reasons, such as fulfilling certain chores, companionship, aesthetic objectives, or entertainment, it is widely assumed that these animals were first tamed by humans for defence and hunting.
Dogs now come in almost 400 different breeds, giving them the biggest phenotypic variation of any mammal.
The extremely specialised characteristics that are selectively bred into dogs can be detrimental to their health.
Not only could a lack of genetic variation in the gene pool cause certain inherited health problems, but dogs raised with deliberately emphasised physical traits may also suffer from their abnormal physical shape.
Breathing issues can occur in ‘flat-faced’ breeds like bulldogs, for example, and bone cancers are frequent in large dogs due to their extra body weight.
Plants and Animals
Almost all of the food that modern humans eat has been carefully bred over thousands of years.
When people first began to dwell in semi-permanent or permanent villages some 10,000 years ago, they began to cultivate their own crops and herd flocks of livestock.
In plants, selective breeding began unintentionally choosing vegetables and fruits for attributes such as sweetness and great size; seeds of plants with the desired qualities would have been given an opportunity to germinate and develop within their latrines by human ingestion (or toilets).
Seedlessness, oil content, and squishy texture were all altered throughout time, rendering most human-cultivated vegetables and fruits unrecognisable when compared to their wild counterparts.
Domesticated animals, such as chickens (which are much larger than their wild forebears), sheep (bred for thicker wool), and cattle, went through a similar process (bred for increased milk yield or more muscle mass).
Hunting
Humans always benefit from non-selective breeding. Selective breeding is done unintentionally outside of biology.
Poachers who hunt elephants and rhinoceros for lucrative ivory and rhino horn have unintentionally selected for animals with reduced tusks and horns in recent years.
Because the males with the greatest horns are the most desired to hunters, the genes that determine size are rapidly disappearing from the population.
In addition, a DNA mutation that causes elephants to lose their tusks is spreading through the population.
Elephant tusks could become extinct if population numbers are drastically reduced as a result of hunting pressure. This is an illustration of the impact that current human population pressures have on animals.
Conclusion
Breeding is the application of genetic concepts to promote desirable attributes in animal husbandry, horticulture, and agriculture.
Several plants were improved by ancient agriculturists through selective cultivation.
Modern plant breeding centres recommend that only pollen from the chosen male parent be carried on to the chosen female parent.