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Tao Xiang: A new horizon for pig breeding: Extension of genomic evaluation from purebreds to crossbreds

PhD defence, Friday 8 September 2017. Tao Xiang.

Tao Xiang

During his studies, Tao Xiang has researched several different genomic evaluation methods for both purebred and crossbred performances with data recordings and genotypes in Danish Landrace, Yorkshire and F1 crossbred pig populations. He has studied how genotype imputation works for purebred and crossbred pigs, and how genomic evaluation methods perform in both purebred and crossbred performances for an important economic pig trait - total number of piglets born. Tao Xiang has confirmed the existence of a moderate and positive genetic correlation between breeding values for purebred and crossbred performances,  and has showed how the importance of combined purebred and crossbred genomic information affects the reliability of estimated breeding values. He has also investigated the impact of non-additive genetic effects on the improvement of genomic evaluation for crossbred performance, and is the first to report the importance of including genomic inbreeding depressions in the genomic evaluation.    


The new research findings contribute to the knowledge of how to apply large-scale genomic evaluation for both purebred and crossbred performances in the pig production system.

The PhD degree is completed at the Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics (QGG), Science and Technology, Aarhus University and the Génétique Physiologie et Systèmes d'Elevage (GenPhySE) laboratory, INRA, France.

This résumé was prepared by the PhD student.

Time: Friday 8 September 2017 at 10.00.
Place: Auditorium, Aarhus University Foulum, Blichers Allé 20, 8830 Tjele
Title of dissertation: Combined purebred and crossbred information for genomic evaluation in pig
Contact information: Tao Xiang, e-mail: tao.xiang@mbg.au.dk, tel.: +4587157972
Members of the assessment committee:
Professor Jörn Bennewitz, Animal Genetics and Breeding, University of Hohenheim, Germany
Senior Researcher Mario Calus, Animal Breeding and Genomics Group, Wageningen University and Research, the Netherlands
Associate professor Bernt Guldbrandtsen (chair), Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University
Main supervisor:
Senior Researcher Ole Fredslund Christensen, Aarhus University