Livestock conservation is changing rapidly in light of policy developments, climate change, and diversifying market demands. The last decade has seen a step change in technology and analytical approaches available to define and manage Farm Animal Genetic Resources (FAnGR). However, these rapid changes pose challenges for FAnGR management in terms of technological continuity, analytical capacity...

Livestock have strong empowerment potential, particularly for women. They offer millions of women in the Global South opportunity to provide protein-rich foods home consumption and sale. with income opportunities expand their livelihood portfolios can strengthen women’s decision-making power. Fully realizing livestock’s potential is necessary sustainable livestock development. It requires, thou...

'Adapt to endure' has become a necessity in agriculture, but the means to do so remain largely undefined. The aim of this literature review is to analyse how the herd contributes to a livestock farming system's capacity to adapt to a changing world and evolve when the future is uncertain. We identify six categories of elements linked to the herd, called 'sources of flexibility', that are used t...

The most polymorphic milk protein gene is β-casein; 13 protein variants are known in cattle. Milk protein genetic polymorphism has received considerable research interest in recent years because of possible associations between milk protein and economically important traits in livestock. The present study was undertaken to explore the genetic polymorphisms in exon 7 of β-casein and exon 4 of κ-...

The identification of regions that have undergone selection is one of the principal goals of theoretical and applied evolutionary genetics. Such studies can also provide information about the evolutionary processes involved in shaping genomes, as well as physical and functional information about genes/genomic regions. Domestication followed by breed formation and selection schemes has allowed t...

Recent studies have proposed the use of molecular coancestry coefficients as a measure of genetic variability and as a useful tool for conservation purposes. Using simulated data, molecular coancestry has been shown to become constant very quickly after separation of populations, leading to population diversity remaining constant. However, the use of molecular coancestry information to study th...

Livestock systems play a key role in the sustainability and livelihood of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The human population SSA is rapidly increasing, resulting steady growth demand for animal-sourced foods (ASF). Most current agricultural production practices coupled with poor management, health challenges indigenous breeds, result low crop livestock productivity often do not meet local demands. ...

The objective of this study was to determine the factors associated with selling price of animals at livestock marts around Ireland. Data consisted of four distinct maturity categories: calves (2 to 84 days of age, n = 53 838); weanlings (6 to 12 months of age, n = 19 972); post-weanlings (12 to 36 months of age, n = 93 081) and cows (>30 months to 12 years of age, n = 94 839); sold through liv...

The Sultanate of Oman has a complex mosaic of livestock species and production systems, but the genetic diversity, demographic history or origins of these Omani animals has not been expensively studied. Goats might constitute one of the most abundant and important domestic livestock species since the Neolithic transition. Here, we examined the genetic diversity, origin, population structure and...