Selective Breeding Research Paper

Humans have been manipulating genetic transfer for over 10,000 years since our hunter- gatherer ancestors began to settle in one place and started farming and planting crops. Those humans observed and chose organisms from natural selection to select and breed organisms that showed characteristics desired by them and this began the process of selective breeding. Selective breeding favours recessive alleles that do not persist in wild populations. Selective breeding is a process of increasing the frequency of rare and recessive alleles so that they appear in homozygous form. This has the effect of eliminating the alleles for wild type from the population and the process of domestication has become irreversible. The domestic species has become dependent on humans for their survival. It is from these domestic species that humans have selected and breed favourable genetic traits for their benefit, be it higher yield in plant crops, sweeter tasting fruit, and more milk from dairy cows or ease of handling stock, selective breeding continues to be used today.

Breed-specific legislation is not as functional or as useful as it was intended to be. According to Fred Kray of StopBSL.com, “Breed specific legislation (BSL) is a law that bans OR restricts certain types of dogs based on their appearance, usually because they are perceived as ‘dangerous’ breeds or types of dogs”. These restrictions include total exclusion of certain breeds from individual cities, muzzle requirements for dogs in public, the requirement of purchasing liability insurance for dog bites or even the requirement of placing a “vicious dog” tag on the dog’s collar just to name a few. BSL causes the bully breeds (breeds considered dangerous and most importantly, have a Pitbull terrier appearance) to become more dangerous, leads to the discrimination of individual breeds, and causes Pitbulls to be put down when surrendered to shelters instead of being adopted into loving homes.

Artificial selection – a breeder that selects desired traits for a species and then breeds that species to have those traits.

Many people are familiar with the words natural selection, an idea that was popularized by Darwin in the 19th century; to simply define it, natural selection is nature’s editing mechanism that results in the favoring of some individuals over others when exposed to certain environmental factors. Artificial selection parallels the process of natural selection but with an added twist: the involvement of human beings. Artificial selection is “a process in which humans consciously select for or against particular features in organisms” allowing “only organisms with the desired feature to reproduce or may provide more resources to the organisms with the desired feature” (Artificial Selection, n.d.).

Farmers are using different technology for breeding. They used selective breeding to produce animals that exhibit desirable traits and they get more benefit from it. For example, using breeding techniques farmers makes cows which produce more milk with less lactose, and sheep which produce more wool. Farmers accept this new selective breeding technology because in the past, farmers would use growth hormones to promote such qualities. This became problematic when residue of the hormones remained in the meat, leaving it with a foul taste. When researchers began to clone transgenic animals, it became possible to develop certain traits in animals, which increased the quality of their yield. When a farmer would like to raise the standards of a herd, the breeding process is very slow and sometimes incomes can decrease (Wilmut 23). Many times when relying on sexual breeding alone to mass-produce these animals, there are chances of breeding out the desired traits (Freudenrich). Transgenic animal cloning will result in higher quality meats and dairies without the use of artificial hormones. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration released in January 2008 concluded “edible products from normal, healthy clones or their progeny do not appear to pose increased food consumption risks relative to comparable products from conventional animals.” After 2008, US Food and Drug Administrative agree to use

I believe that we the people of the United States of America should not need a license to breed. The government controls and keeps the United States under control as much as possible. They constantly breath down everybody's necks , so with that being the case I personally don't want the government to control how and when I would want to start a family or expand my family. If you wouldn't be qualified for a breeding license most of the people's families would suffer on the number of the members in that family.

The most commonly used genetic altering purpose today is seen in animals, and it produces a multitude of opportunities. Industries, such as agriculture, have already taken action with this opportunity. Cows can be made to produce more milk, higher quality beef, and higher quality milk. Sheep can be made to produce more wool, or salmon could be made to grow faster and larger than usual. In other words, one needs less cows to produce the required milk, less sheep to produce enough wool, and less salmon to get the desired meat. Additionally, to an increase in productivity, these animals will most likely have a high tolerance to a number of diseases and illnesses. This means that not only will the cattle, sheep, and salmon be more productive, but also live a longer, healthier life. Andrew B. Perzigian in, “Brief summary of Genetic engineering and animals” says that

Selective breeding also could cause a decrease in biodiversity due to inbreeding. Inbreeding is the production of breeding between closely related individuals [2] and is used as it increases the chance of having favourable alleles and desirable phenotypes in the offspring. However, due to the individuals close genetic relations to one another this can cause many problems for the biodiversity of the population of dairy cows. Traits that may be disadvantageous now will be continuously chosen against during genomic selection and embryo transfer as the DNA is being scanned and checked for undesirable traits. However, this disadvantageous trait may become an advantageous trait in the future but it will be lost through the generations of selective breeding against it and are difficult to get back. As a result, this affects the evolution of the species as a whole because they develop and change to suit the desirable traits chosen which results in the undesirable traits being lost altogether.

What exactly is breed discrimination? Good question. Also known as Breed Specific Legislation, (BSL) it is the targeting towards dogs based off of their appearance. Remember when our teachers told us to never judge a book by its cover? Society is doing just that to the innocent dogs who are neglected because of history and abusive owners.

Artificial and natural selection go along with the changing of a species over time. The best example of this is during the 19th century during the industrial revolution. During this time the white typica moth was the predominate species. Over the course of the revolution with the pollution and the environment changing a new species of moth came to be called the pepper moth which was black. This was a big change that showed natural selection because you see that all the white moths started getting picked off one by one because they had nowhere to hide from predators, but the black moths did which led them to become the dominate species

As scientists are experimenting with many methods of gene selection, the livestock industry are relying more on genetic selection. Genetic selection allow the farmers to produce the most fertile and efficient livestock. There are many impacts of genetic selection. Genetic selection allows the farmers to genetically modify the breed of the livestock to that mass production can occur to fulfill the need of consumers. With genetic selection the quantity and quality of meat and dairy production has been increased. I was not familiar with the technique of artificial insemination for reproduction biology until I took this class. I learned that artificial insemination is also a technique of genetic selection which allows the scientist to decide what kind of livestock they want. Also, to improve in fur quality of animal, the genetic selection is in used. With genetic selection, scientist can now improve the production rate of cattle. Genetic selection can also improve the physical characteristics of the livestock. To keep up with the world’s need in beef and dairy production genetic selections have a huge impact. Nowadays, the agriculture industries have been vastly improved because of the advancement in the genetic selections. Genetic selections also allow the farmer to modify animal more for either meat or dairy production. For example, Boer goat has been genetically modified to gain

One of the most meaningful acts a breeder can do is provide their puppies with the best start in life, but it doesn't stop there. As a responsible breeder, your dedication surrounds helping prospective puppy owners raise happy and healthy dogs. As a dog lover, connecting caring, responsible individuals and families with their forever pet is your passion. By encouraging and endorsing products that promote the wholesome development of dogs, particularly during the first year of life, breeders can be a part of ensuring a long and active life for the pups. Breeders hold themselves and their clients to the highest standards and the goal is improving the life of each puppy.

Artificial selection and natural selection are different forms of the same practice that Charles Darwin observed. Artificial selection is when man controls the breeding for a specific trait just like genetic engineering where scientists alter and clone genes to produce a new trait in an organism. At the same time, natural selection is based on environmental conditions. Natural selection is Darwin’s famous theory stating evolutionary changes that occur through the production of variation in each generation. Organisms that are best suited to their environment

If these traits that it possesses that made it different were useful than that creature may reproduce more than normal. Of course in Darwin’s day DNA had not been discovered but it was known that traits were passed to offspring. Natural selection is when the organisms with good traits survive the trials of nature. Artificial selection is what breeders do, the cow that gives more milk, or the plant that produces larger fruit are selected to be reproduced. Encyclopedia Encarta defines natural selection as “the process by which environmental effects lead to varying degrees of reproductive success among individuals of a population of organisms with different hereditary characters, or traits. The characters that inhibit reproductive success decrease in frequency from generation to generation. The resulting increase in the proportion of reproductively successful individuals usually enhances the adaptation of the population to its environment”

Technology has been getting more and more advanced meaning that scientists have access to more advanced equipment and can conduct more complicated experiments. Scientists have found ways of enhancing and changing the genetic makeup of organisms when they are forming making it possible to customize and choose different traits and features about an organism’s physical appearance. This is very useful for farmers as they can breed their animals to have a certain trait or characteristic. For example, a farmer may want a muscly cow so with today’s studies it is possible to collect the semen from their muscliest bull and choose the strongest sperm then artificially inseminate an egg from their muscliest cow to produce a muscly calf. They can then repeat this procedure once the calf grows up and eventually over a couple of generations of this they will end up with a very muscly cow. This is called artificial