Selective Breeding

Section 1: Understanding Selective Breeding

• Selective breeding, also known as artificial selection, is a process used by humans to develop new organisms with desirable characteristics.
• Breeders select two parents that have beneficial phenotypic traits to reproduce, yielding offspring with those desired traits.

Section 2: Purpose of Selective Breeding

• The purpose of selective breeding is to enhance desired traits among plants or animals.
• It has been used for thousands of years in farming to improve crops and animals.
• Modern selective breeding techniques are used to improve yield, disease resistance, or climate hardiness in crops, and to enhance specific attributes, such as milk production, in livestock.

Section 3: Selective Breeding Process

• Selective breeding involves several steps: selection, mating, evaluation, and repeat.
• The selection process involves choosing parents that have characteristics of interest.
• The next step is mating the selected male and female.
• Breeders then evaluate offspring and select those with the most desirable traits to parent the next generation.
• This process is repeated over many generations to establish the desired traits in the population.

Section 4: Implications and Risks of Selective Breeding

• Care must be taken with selective breeding as it can lead to inbreeding, where closely related individuals are mated.
• If overdone, this can increase the likelihood of harmful genetic conditions appearing and can reduce genetic diversity.
• Selective breeding can also lead to loss of original genetic traits and the extinction of original breeds or species.

Section 5: Examples of Selective Breeding

• Selective breeding can result in dramatic differences over time. Examples in livestock include different breeds of dogs or dairy cows bred for higher milk production.
• In plants, selective breeding has been used to create crops with disease resistance, such as various types of wheat and rice.