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Genomic selection revolutionized the world of bovine selection in few years. Poultry breeders naturally question themselves on the interest to use this kind of selection on their own animals. Studies are currently underway to optimize genomic selection schemes in poultry. A key parameter of this optimization is to correctly predict the accuracy of genomic evaluation.

Study the structure of the linkage disequilibrium

Studies in mammals show that the accuracy of genomic evaluation strongly depend on the structure of the linkage disequilibrium, and theorical formulas aiming to predict this precision are to use with discernment. Avian genomes being characterized by an heterogenic structure, it could be very instructive to confront accuracies obtained via theoretical predictions or using real dataset.
The PhD work is to evaluate, on an available real dataset, the accuracy of the genomic evaluation in pure line and crossbred layers. Then, compare the observed precision to those predicted by theorical formula.
The dataset contains 600k SNP genotypes for 2 000 pure line animals, and phenotypes on fortnightly production and egg quality features, for 26 000 pure line hens, and 65 000 crossbred hens.

The objectives of the PhD are to evaluate:

• results of the genomic evaluation on the real data,
• differences between pure line and crossbred,
• as well as the correlation between theorical results and real observations.

Propose a strategy for predicting genomic value

Synthesis of the set of results should allow to improve the prediction of accuracy in birds, and by the way, the optimization of genomic selection schemes in poultry.

David Picard-Druet is working on this subject of thesis since the 1st november of 2016 for 3 years. He is supervised by Pascale Le Roy in the team genetics and genomics.

Contact

david.picard-druet[at]inra.fr