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Submitted to: National Poultry Breeders Roundtable
Publication Type: Proceedings Publication Acceptance Date: 5/6/2010 Publication Date: 8/1/2010 Citation: Leeds, T.D. 2010. Genetic improvement of rainbow trout at the National Center for Cool and Cold Water Aquaculture. National Poultry Breeders Roundtable. May 6-7, 2010, St. Louis, Missouri. p. 10. Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: A major constraint to increasing the efficiency of rainbow trout production is the lack of well-characterized, genetically-improved stocks. Scientists at the USDA, ARS, National Center for Center for Cool and Cold Water Aquaculture have developed two resource populations suitable for long-term selective breeding research. Integrated research among our core health, physiology, and genomics programs is being conducted on these populations to characterize genetic control of economically-important production traits and assess the effects of selective breeding for improved growth rate and disease resistance. To date, our scientists have 1) characterized important host and pathogen diversity and host x pathogen interactions; 2) identified key mechanisms affecting growth rate, feed efficiency, stress response, and ovarian development; 3) developed improved procedures for producing tetraploid fish; 4) developed a suite of genomic tools critical for genetic mapping and QTL discovery; and 5) quantified response to selection for improved disease resistance. This collaborative research is ongoing, and our long-term goals are to develop marker-assisted selection strategies to facilitate traditional selective breeding, and release well-characterized, genetically-improved lines of rainbow trout to the industry to improve production efficiency. |
