BACKGROUND Cavalier King Charles Spaniels (CKCS) are predisposed to myxomatous mitral valve disease (MMVD). Studies have indicated a strong genetic background. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of a breeding scheme involving auscultation and echocardiography. ANIMALS In the Danish Kennel Club mandatory breeding scheme, 997 purebred CKCS were examined during the peri...

The lifetime movements of an individual determine the gene flow and invasion potential of the species. However, sex dependence of dispersal and selective pressures driving dispersal have gained much more attention than dispersal at different life and age stages. Natal dispersal is more common than dispersal between breeding attempts, but breeding dispersal may be promoted by resource availabili...

Introduction Today, a wide range of molecular tools and powerful computers provides us with an unprecedented capacity to generate data that reveals the architecture of genomes, genes, traits, and how these contribute to the value of the germplasm units (populations, lines, varieties, hybrids, cultivars) used in breeding programs. Complementary work is characterising the key environmental variab...

Effectively, poultry breeding started when the chicken was domesticated thousands of years ago. Through human intervention many different breeds evolved over the centuries, but breeders began to use scientifically based selection methods less than a century ago. Mendel discovered the working of single genes and the chicken was one of the first species in which this basic concept was applied, e....

Survival data were simulated under the Weibull model in a half-sib family design, and about 50% of the records were censored. The data were analysed using the proportional hazard model (PHM) and, after transformation to survival scores, using a linear and a binary (logit) model (LIN and BIN, respectively), where the survival scores are indicators of survival during time period t given survival ...

Allocation decisions depend on an organism's condition which can change with age. Two opposite changes in life-history traits are predicted in the presence of senescence: either an increase in breeding performance in late age associated with terminal investment or a decrease due to either life-history trade-offs between current breeding and future survival or decreased efficiency at old age. Ag...

As weather deteriorates, breeding animals have a diverse array of options to ensure survival. Because of their mobility, birds can easily abandon territories to seek out benign conditions away from the breeding site. The timing of abandonment, however, may have repercussions for territory size, mate quality, reproductive success, and survival. There is a large body of evidence indicating that t...