Preservation breeding
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Preservation breeding is an attempt by many plant and animal breeders to preserve bloodlines of species, either of a rare breed, or of rare pedigrees within a breed.[1][2][3]
Preservation breeding can have several purposes:
- Protection of genetic diversity within a species or a breed;[2][4][5]
- Preservation of valuable genetic traits that may not be popular or in fashion in the present, but may be of great value in the future;[1]
- Population or re-population of an area where a species previously existed;
- Support of a wild population that is defective or infected, by breeding healthy individuals and releasing them into the population in order to strengthen the overall health of the population.[6]
Mechanism
Preservation breeding can take the following forms:
- Selective breeding of rare breeds and rare pedigrees, particularly monitoring breeding genetics in small populations to ensure diversity is maintained as much as possible;[2]
- Rare breeds that suffer life-threatening genetic deficiencies can be intentionally cross-bred with other breeds that have the critical gene, in order to preserve the rare breed into the future;[1]
