• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.470-475
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• 2013

The objective of this study was to estimate genetic parameters that are to be used for across-herd genetic evaluations of seed stock pigs at GGP level. Performance data with pedigree information collected from swine breeder farms in Korea were provided by Korea Animal Improvement Association (AIAK). Performance data were composed of final body weights at test days and ultrasound measures of back fat thickness (BF), rib eye area (EMA) and retail cut percentage (RCP). Breeds of swine tested were Landrace, Yorkshire and Duroc. Days to 90 kg body weight (DAYS90) were estimated with linear function of age and ADG calculated from body weights at test days. Ultrasound measures were taken with A-mode ultrasound scanners by trained technicians. Number of performance records after censoring outliers and keeping records pigs only born from year 2000 were of 78,068 Duroc pigs, 101,821 Landrace pigs and 281,421 Yorkshire pigs. Models included contemporary groups defined by the same herd and the same seasons of births of the same year, which was regarded as fixed along with the effect of sex for all traits and body weight at test day as a linear covariate for ultrasound measures. REML estimation was processed with REMLF90 program. Heritability estimates were 0.40, 0.32, 0.21 0.39 for DAYS90, ADG, BF, EMA, RCP, respectively for Duroc population. Respective heritability estimates for Landrace population were 0.43, 0.41, 0.22, and 0.43 and for Yorkshire population were 0.36, 0.38, 0.22, and 0.42. Genetic correlation coefficients of DAYS90 with BF, EMA, or RCP were estimated to be 0.00 to 0.09, -0.15 to -0.25, 0.22 to 0.28, respectively for three breeds populations. Genetic correlation coefficients estimated between BF and EMA was -0.33 to -0.39. Genetic correlation coefficient estimated between BF and RCP was high and negative (-0.78 to -0.85) but the environmental correlation coefficients between these two traits was medium and negative (near -0.35), which describes a highly correlated genetic response to selection on one or the other of these traits. Genetic Trends of all three breeds tend to be towards bigger EMA or greater RCP and shorter DAYS90 especially from generations born after year 2000.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.912-918
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• 2011

Newly born lambs have to face challenges in a new environment totally different from that of the uterus. Adaptation to extra-uterine life involves functional changes with almost each organ and system in the body undergoing a series of metabolic and anatomical modifications. Failure to adapt the extra-uterine environment can not only lead to homeostatic disturbances but also lead to the death of the affected lambs. Hematological parameters of newly born lambs show variability that differs between breeds of lambs. The purpose of present study was to determine homeostatic responses and physiological reference values in Kajli breed lambs occurring in the neonatal period through changes in blood profile, respiratory rate, heart rate, live weight and rectal, scrotal and skin temperatures. For this purpose, sixteen clinically fit lambs (males = 10 and females = 6) with a mean body weight $6.92{\pm}0.46$ kg were selected. Physiological data of selected parameters of each Kajli lamb was recorded at three day intervals and hematological parameters at five days for a period of 30 days. In general, statistical analysis showed a significant effect of time (p<0.001) on all the studied physiological and hematological parameters except platelets counts, white blood cells and hemoglobin concentration. The results documented in the current study are an addition to existing knowledge of the physiology of Kajli sheep breed should be helpful in developing feeding, disease diagnoses and treatment protocols for newborn Kajli stock.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.31 no.7
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• pp.1007-1016
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• 2018

USA beef production is characterized by a diversity of climates, environmental conditions, animal phenotypes, management systems, and a multiplicity of nutritional inputs. The USA beef herd consists of more than 80 breeds of cattle and crosses thereof, and the industry is divided into distinct, but ofttimes overlapping sectors, including seedstock production, cow-calf production, stocker/backgrounding, and feedlot. Exception for male dairy calves, production is predominantly pastoral-based, with young stock spending relatively brief portions of their life in feedlots. The beef industry is very technology driven, utilizing reproductive management strategies, genetic improvement technologies, exogenous growth promoting compounds, vaccines, antibiotics, and feed processing strategies, focusing on improvements in efficiency and cost of production. Young steers and heifers are grain-based diets fed for an average of 5 months, mostly in feedlots of 1,000 head capacity or more, and typically are slaughtered at 15 to 28 months of age to produce tender, well-marbled beef. Per capita beef consumption is nearly 26 kg annually, over half of which is consumed in the form of ground products. Beef exports, which are increasingly important, consist primarily of high value cuts and variety meats, depending on destination. In recent years, adverse climatic conditions (i.e., draught), a shrinking agricultural workforce, emergence of food-borne pathogens, concerns over development of antimicrobial resistance, animal welfare/well-being, environmental impact, consumer perceptions of healthfulness of beef, consumer perceptions of food animal production practices, and alternative uses of traditional feed grains have become increasingly important with respect to their impact on both beef production and demand for beef products. Similarly, changing consumer demographics and globalization of beef markets have dictated changes in the types of products demanded by consumers of USA beef, both domestically and abroad. The industry is highly adaptive, however, and responds quickly to evolving economic signals.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.143-150
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• 1991

The data on reproductive performance of 1065 purebred Landrace, 1254 purebred Yorkshire. 553 purebred Duroc and 327 purebred Pietrain sows bred to farrow purebred litters and data from 3413 Landrace $\times$ Yorkshire, 487 Duroc $\times$ Pietrain and 3191 commericial litters were udsed in this study. The data were collected form litters farrowed form January 1986 to December 1988 in Holiday Hills Stock and Breeding Farms, San Prero, Laguna. The crossbred sows and litters were better in most traits associated with sow productivity than their contemporary purebred sows and litters. The Duroc $\times$ Pietrain crossbred litters showed 16.67% improvement in litter size at weaning, 10.11% improvement in survival rate form birth to weaning and 16.21% more pigs per sow pre year than the averages of their parental breeds. The litters from the Landrace $\times$ Yorkshire crossbred sows sired by either Duroc or Duroc $\times$ Pietrain boars had 11.01% bigger litter size at birth, 20.74% increase in litter size at weaning and 22.86% more pigs weaned per sow per year than the averages of the four parental breeds. Very little improvement in most traits evaluated were observed form the Landrace $\times$ Yorkshire crossbred litters compared with their parental breeds. Year of birth of litter had litter influence on sow productivity. However, the reproductivity performance declined when sows farrowed in June up to September. The best Months of farrowing were found to be from January to April. The breed $\times$ year, breed $\times$ month and year $\times$ month had no significant effects on all traits evaluated.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.189-198
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• 2017

This study was conducted to develop a new synthetic breed of Korean native chicken. The combining ability and reciprocal effects for production traits were estimated on 1,157 hens from a $5{\times}5$ diallel cross-mating design using grand parent stock (GPS) lines of Korean native chicken. Body weight, viability, age at first egg laying, egg weight, and hen-day egg production were measured and analyzed. The results showed that the general combining ability (GCA) of the survival rate during laying periods was -9.6 to 11.1, with the highest value obtained in the W strain. Additionally, the GCA of the body weight at 12 weeks was -209.7 to 162.2, with the highest value obtained in the F strain. The GCA for age at fist egg laying was estimated to be -2.8 to 3.7, while the GCA of egg weight was -0.91 to 0.96, and the GCA of hen-day egg production was -4.9 to 6.0. In the estimation of specific combining ability, the YW combination showed the highest survival rate, FW showed the highest body weight at 12 weeks, and GW showed the highest hen-day egg production. The reciprocal effects were significantly different among crosses for almost all productivity traits. In identical breeding combinations, differences in ability were observed when the maternal or paternal breeds were switched. The mean value based on combining ability was higher in WY, WF, and GW combinations for survival rate; GF, HG, and HF combinations for body weight at 12 weeks; and GW, YW, and FW combinations for hen-day egg production. It is concluded that the GF and HF combinations, which have excellent growth performance and moderate survival rate, are the most desirable paternal parent stock (PS) strains, and the GW and FW combinations, which have great laying performance and moderate body weight, are the most desirable maternal PS strains.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2010

Black sea bream, Acanthopagrus schlegelii, is a commercially important fish in Korea. As a preliminary investigation into the effect of hatchery rearing for stock enhancement, we examined genetic diversity between wild and farmed black sea bream populations from Jeju using six microsatellite markers. High levels of polymorphism were observed between the two populations. A total of 87 different alleles were found at the loci, with some alleles being unique. Allelic variability ranged from 8 to 22 in the wild population and from 7 to 17 in the farmed one. Average observed and expected heterozygosities were estimated at 0.87 and 0.88 in the wild sample. The corresponding estimates were 0.83 and 0.86 in the farmed sample. Although a considerable loss of rare alleles was observed in the farmed sample, no statistically significant reductions were found in heterozygosity or allelic diversity in the farmed sample, compared with the wild one. Significant genetic heterogeneity was found between the wild and farmed populations. These results suggest that more intensive breeding practices for stock enhancement may have resulted in a further decrease of genetic diversity. Thus, it is necessary to monitor genetic variation in bloodstock, progeny, and target populations and control inbreeding in a commercial breeding program for conservation. This information may be useful for fisheries management and the aquaculture industry.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.419-427
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• 2009

The Minke whale, Balaenoptera acutorostrata, is the smallest baleen whale in the suborder Mysticeti. Because this species inhabits coastal areas, it became a main target species of coastal small-type whaling in the North Atlantic and the Northwest Pacific Oceans, and the species' population size dramatically decreased because of over-exploitation. As a result, the International Whaling Commission declared a global moratorium on whaling and launched the development of a management procedure for protecting the whales. Morphological studies, whaling history analysis, and genetic studies conducted mainly by Japanese scientists showed the existence of one unique "E" stock that inhabits the waters around the Korean peninsula and mixes with the "O" stock in the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk. We used the mitochondrial DNA control region polymorphism of 348 Minke whales bycaught or stranded in Korean waters from 30 October 1998 to 25 June 2005 to assess the whale population structure by year. The frequency of the 10 major haplotypes from the 40 identified haplotypes was not significantly different among groups, suggesting that a subpopulation was not present. A comparison of the genetic distances calculated with Tamura-Nei's method showed that the distances between groups were lower than those within groups, which suggests that there was no genetic difference in the Minke whale populations. The Fst comparison between groups and the phylogenetic tree constructed using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) and Neighbor Joining (NJ) method also detected no obvious sub-stock structure.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.765-773
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• 2009

Sterol regulatory element binding factor 1 (SREBF1) and fatty acid synthase (FASN) genes play an important role in the biosynthesis of fatty acids and cholesterol, and in lipid metabolism. This study used polymorphisms in the intron 5 of bovine SREBF1 and in the thioesterase (TE) domain of FASN genes to evaluate their associations with beef fatty acid composition. A previously identified 84-bp indel (L: insertion/long type and S: deletion/short type) of the SREBF1 gene in Korean cattle had significant associations with the concentration of stearic (C18:0), linoleic (C18:2) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). The stearic acid concentration was 6.30% lower in the SS than the LL genotype (p<0.05), but the linoleic and PUFA contents were 11.06% and 12.20% higher in SS compared to LL (p<0.05). Based on the sequence analysis, five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) g.17924G>A, g.18043C>T, g.18440G>A, g.18529G>A and g.18663C>T in the TE domain of the FASN gene were identified among the different cattle breeds studied. Among these, only g.17924 G>A and g.18663C>T SNPs were segregating in the Hanwoo population. The g.17924G>A SNP is a non-synonymous mutation (thr2264ala) and was significantly associated with the contents of palmitic (C16:0) and oleic acid (C18:1). The oleic acid concentration was 3.18% and 2.79% higher in Hanwoo with the GG genotype than the AA and AG genotypes, respectively (p<0.05), whereas the GG genotype had 3.8% and 4.01% lower palmitic acid than in those cattle with genotype AA and AG, respectively (p<0.05). Tissue expression data showed that SREBFI and FASN genes were expressed in a variety of tissues though they were expressed preferentially in different muscle tissues. In conclusion, the 84-bp indel of SREBF1 and g.17924G>A SNP of the FASN gene can be used as DNA markers to select Hanwoo breeding stock for fatty acid composition.

• Journal of fish pathology
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.99-110
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• 2013

Hatchery-reared seeds provides a key source of animal protein for human consumption and restocking for fishery management. For stock enhancement program, we have inspected the hatchery-reared seeds of 33 species in 2009, 44 species in 2010, 43 species in 2011 and 46 species in 2012 for legally designated diseases. Results showed that abalone was the most abundant in the marine species group and then sea cucumber, olive flounder, rockfish and swimming crab were followed. Crucian carp was the most abundant and then mandarin fish, Korean bullhead, melanian snail and Chinese mitten crab were followed in the freshwater species group. The number of inspection for black sea bream, rock bream, scorpionfish, black scraper, and eel has continuously decreased for four years. The inspection for flathead mullet has been carried out only in 2009. The total number of inspection cases for eight pathogens in this study were 8,476 and disqualification cases were 56 (0.67%) by detection of aquatic animals pathogens such as koi herpesvirus, white spot syndrome virus, red sea bream iridovirus or viral haemorrhagic septicemia virus.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.419-426
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• 1992

After the virtual eradication of cattle during World War II, Papua New Guinea herds were rebuilt with Shorthorn and Aberdeen Angus cattle from Australia. These, and Red Sindhi and Sahiwal, imported in 1952, were considered unsuitable breeds. In 1954, Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries imported three Brahman bulls and three heifers from Texas and in 1960 began importations of Afrikaner from Queensland. In Central Province, Brahmans were crossed with Angus and at Erap (Morobe) the hottest place in Papua New Guinea, Shorthorns were crossed with Afrikaners. In 1965, Brahman and Brahman-cross were sent to Erap. Records of breeding and growth rates were collected for use in upgrading in cattle of the basis of performance, not pedigree. The data are not ideal for genetic analysis, since no control groups were maintained. Birth weights (BWT), weaning weights (WWT) and calving intervals (CI) were analysed for the period 1969-1978. After exclusion of unsatisfactory data, 2,514 calf records were used, including both breeds from 1969 to 1973, but only Brahman-cross subsequently. Breed mean BWT ranged only from 30.6 to 33.8 kg. As Brahman content increased, BWT decreased and WWT increased; within a genotype, there was a negative maternal effect of high Brahman content on BWT and a positive effect on WWT which ranged from 138 to 174 kg. Afrikaner calves had heavier BWT but lighter WWT. As expected, bulls were heaviest, heifers lightest and mature cows bore and reared heavier calves. Calving interval (405 days, equivalent to 90% calving) was unaffected by breed but 4-year old cows averaged 423 days. Breed differences in BWT and WWT are consistent with the body of literature on performance of Brahmans and Afrikaners. Since cattle tick are not present and internal parasites are insignificant at Erap, the superiority of Brahmans indicates that they were better at utilizing the mediocre quality grazing of the Markham Valley or were more heat tolerant. Performance selection over ten years resulted in the virtual elimination of Afrikaners, with the final genotype approximately 9/16 Brahman, 3/8 Shorthorn and 1/16 Afrikaner.