Plant and Animal Breeding Flashcards
Why is plant and animal breeding carried out?
To improve characteristics to help support sustainable food production
Breeders develop improved crops and animals with…
Higher food yields
Higher nutritional values
Pest and disease resistance
Ability to thrive in particular environmental conditions
Why are field trials carried out in a range of environments?
To compare the performance of different cultivars or treatments and to evaluate GM crops
What has to be taken into account when designing field trials and why?
The selection of treatments- to ensure valid comparisons
The number of replicates- to take account of the variability within the sample
Randomisation of treatments- to eliminate bias when measuring treatment effects
When breeders carry out interbreeding, selected plants or animals are bred for several generations until?
The population breeds true to the desired type due to the elimination of heterozygotes
What happens as a result of inbreeding?
An increase in frequency of individuals who are homozygous for recessive deleterious alleles can be observed, resulting in inbreeding depression
How can new alleles be introduced to plant and animal lines?
By crossing a cultivar or breed with an individual with a different, desired genotype
In animals, individuals from different breeds may produce?
A new crossbreed population with improved characteristics
Two parent breeds can be maintained to produce?
More crossbreed animals showing the improved characteristic
What produces the F1 hybrids? And what is created?
The crossing of two different inbred lines, creates a relatively uniform heterozygous crop
F1 hybrids often have increased?
Vigour and yield
Why are F1 hybrids not usually bred together?
As the F2 produced shows too much variation
Plants with increased vigour may also have?
Increased disease resistance or increased growth rate
What can happen as a result of genomic sequencing?
Organisms with desirable genes can be identified and then used in breeding programmes
Give an example of recombinant DNA technology in plant breeding?
Insertion of Bt toxin gene into plants for plant resistance
Glyphosate resistance gene inserted for herbicide tolerance
