
- It is free. Selective breeding is a free process that can be performed on plants and animals, especially for the purpose of business. ...
- It requires no company patent. Anyone who is working in the agricultural business can start this method whenever he wants. ...
- It provides higher yields. ...
- It leads to higher profits. ...
- It does not pose any safety issues. ...
What are some reasons humans use selective breeding?
Selective breeding is a process that humans use to select parents from plants or animals that have specific characteristics of interest. The hope of making this selection is that the offspring will inherit the desirable traits, allowing future generations to benefit from the chosen changes. This practice has been in place for thousands of years.
What is the intended result of selective breeding?
The goal of selective breeding is to increase the chances of preferred traits being transferred from parents to offspring. Good traits will be transferred in this process, but so will poor traits. There is also the potential of a genetic mutation occurring that can render the process useless.
What is one disadvantage of selective breeding?
What is a disadvantage of selective breeding? Selective breeding can result in better quality products and higher yields in plants and animals that have been bred for specific characteristics. Disadvantages include a reduction in genetic diversity and discomfort for animals that have very exaggerated characteristics.
Is selective breeding a good thing?
the method of selective breeding can produce fitter and stronger animals that provide higher yields of meat, milk or eggs. This should also be good as farmers can produce animals that are better suited to survive in marginal conditions or poor climates, preserving human food supplies and saving life. Click to see full answer.

What is selective breeding?
Selective breeding involves choosing parents with particular characteristics to breed together and produce offspring with more desirable characteristics. dogs with particular physiques and temperaments, suited to do jobs like herd sheep or collect pheasants. Selective breeding aims to adapt an organism’s characteristics in a way ...
Why are inbred populations more likely to suffer from genetic conditionscaused by recessivegene variants?
Inbred populations are more likely to suffer from genetic conditionscaused by recessivegene variants because they are more likely to inherit two copies of the recessive variants, one from each parent.
Why are some of the offspring taller than their parents?
Some of the offspring may even be taller than both of their parents, because they may inherit a combination of different “tall” gene variants from each parent and together these make the offspring taller. With repeated selective breeding over multiple generations this population will get taller and taller.
What breed of dog is a Labradoodle?
The Labradoodle is a crossbred dog resulting from breeding a Labrador with a poodle
What happens to an organism after many generations of inbreeding?
After many generations of inbreeding, the offspring will be almost genetically identical, and will produce identical offspring. When this happens, an organism is described as inbred or purebred.
Why are the offspring of plants that self pollinate not identical to the parent plant?
The offspring of plants that self-pollinate are not identical to the parent plant, because their genes are shuffled during reproduction. Plant breeders can use self-pollination as a type of inbreeding, creating plants that are genetically more identical and that produce identical offspring after many generations.
What are the factors that determine natural selection?
Natural selection is driven by environmental factors that limit survival and reproduction, such as harsh environments or competition for mates.
What is selective breeding?
Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together.
Who was the first to use selective breeding?
The notion of selective breeding was later expressed by the Persian Muslim polymath Abu Rayhan Biruni in the 11th century. He noted the idea in his book titled India, which included various examples. The agriculturist selects his corn, letting grow as much as he requires, and tearing out the remainder.
What are the characteristics of aquaculture?
Quality traits in aquaculture 1 Growth rate – growth rate is normally measured as either body weight or body length. This trait is of great economic importance for all aquaculture species as faster growth rate speeds up the turnover of production. Improved growth rates show that farmed animals utilize their feed more efficiently through a positive correlated response. 2 Survival rate – survival rate may take into account the degrees of resistance to diseases. This may also see the stress response as fish under stress are highly vulnerable to diseases. The stress fish experience could be of biological, chemical or environmental influence. 3 Meat quality – the quality of fish is of great economic importance in the market. Fish quality usually takes into account size, meatiness, and percentage of fat, colour of flesh, taste, shape of the body, ideal oil and omega-3 content. 4 Age at sexual maturation – The age of maturity in aquaculture species is another very important attribute for farmers as during early maturation the species divert all their energy to gonad production affecting growth and meat production and are more susceptible to health problems (Gjerde 1986). 5 Fecundity – As the fecundity in fish and shellfish is usually high it is not considered as a major trait for improvement. However, selective breeding practices may consider the size of the egg and correlate it with survival and early growth rate.
What animals were selectively bred?
Selective breeding of both plants and animals has been practiced since early prehistory; key species such as wheat, rice, and dogs have been significantly different from their wild ancestors for millennia, and maize , which required especially large changes from teosinte, its wild form, was selectively bred in Mesoamerica.
Why is it important to document genetic changes?
Documentation of the genetic changes was considered important as they help in fine tuning further selection schemes.
How many generations of selection for rainbow trout?
Rainbow trout ( S. gairdneri) was reported to show large improvements in growth rate after 7–10 generations of selection. Kincaid et al. (1977) showed that growth gains by 30% could be achieved by selectively breeding rainbow trout for three generations. A 7% increase in growth was recorded per generation for rainbow trout by Kause et al. (2005).
How are animals bred?
Animals with homogeneous appearance, behavior, and other characteristics are known as particular breeds or pure breeds, and they are bred through culling animals with particular traits and selecting for further breeding those with other traits. Purebred animals have a single, recognizable breed, and purebreds with recorded lineage are called pedigreed. Crossbreeds are a mix of two purebreds, whereas mixed breeds are a mix of several breeds, often unknown. Animal breeding begins with breeding stock, a group of animals used for the purpose of planned breeding. When individuals are looking to breed animals, they look for certain valuable traits in purebred stock for a certain purpose, or may intend to use some type of crossbreeding to produce a new type of stock with different, and, it is presumed, superior abilities in a given area of endeavor. For example, to breed chickens, a breeder typically intends to receive eggs, meat, and new, young birds for further reproduction. Thus, the breeder has to study different breeds and types of chickens and analyze what can be expected from a certain set of characteristics before he or she starts breeding them. Therefore, when purchasing initial breeding stock, the breeder seeks a group of birds that will most closely fit the purpose intended.
What is selective breeding?
Another method, known as selective breeding, evaluates genetic involvement by attempting to breed for high and low extremes of a trait for several generations.
What is animal breeding?
animal breeding. In agricultural sciences: Animal sciences. …agricultural animals were subjected to selective breeding to some extent. Modifying livestock and poultry to meet consumer demands requires the application of scientific principles to the selection of superior breeding animals and planned matings. For example, consumers have come ...
How does artificial selection differ from natural selection?
Artificial selection (or selective breeding) differs from natural selection in that heritable variations in a species are manipulated by humans through controlled breeding. The breeder attempts to isolate and propagate those genotypes that are responsible for a plant or animal’s desired qualities in a suitable environment.
What is artificial selection?
Called artificial selection or selective breeding, these techniques have become aspects of a larger and somewhat controversial field called genetic engineering. Of particular interest to plant breeders has been the development of techniques for deliberately altering the functions of genes by manipulating the recombination of DNA. This has made…
What is the purpose of animal behaviour studies?
animal behaviour studies. In animal behaviour: Artificial selection. A wholly different approach to reconstructing the evolution of certain behaviours involves the attempt to “re-create” history by imposing an artificial selection regime on a species that is closely related to the one showing the behaviour of interest.
How is plant breeding accomplished?
This is accomplished by selecting plants found to be economically or aesthetically desirable, first by controlling the mating of selected individuals, and then by selecting certain individuals among the progeny.
What is domestication in biology?
domestication. In domestication. hereditary reorganization of wild animals and plants into domestic and cultivated forms according to the interests of people. In its strictest sense, it refers to the initial stage of human mastery of wild animals and plants.
What is the purpose of selective breeding?
In plants The purpose of selective breeding is to get the best plants as a way to make nicer and larger veggies and other agricultural foods to increase the production of nutrients.
Why do animals breed selectively?
In animals selective breeding is used to get more eggs, meat and milk things that the human need for survival and as a source for nutrition. For example those cows on the top are breed to produce large quantity of milk and they are called dairy cows and if they didn’t get milked they will die.

Selective Breeding Definition
Selective Breeding Overview
- The procedure involves identifying certain desirable features and finding two members of a species that exhibit the particular feature. A series of matings or breedings is then performed between the individuals with favored features to produce offspring that exhibit the feature and that can be used for future matings. The desirable phenotypic traits are passed from parents to …
Selective Breeding Examples
- Dogs
All modern dogs have been selectively bred by humans over thousands of years. Dogs were first bred from a common ancestor of the gray wolf (Canis Lupus), which was domesticated by humans with whom it lived in close proximity. It is widely speculated that these animals were fir… - Plants and Livestock
Almost all of the food consumed by modern humans has been selectively bred over thousands of years. Around 10,000 years ago when humans began living in permanent or semi-permanent settlements, they started to cultivate their own cropsand herd flocks of livestock for the first tim…
Overview
Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together. Domesticated animals are known as breeds, normally bred by a professional br…
Animal breeding
Animals with homogeneous appearance, behavior, and other characteristics are known as particular breeds or pure breeds, and they are bred through culling animals with particular traits and selecting for further breeding those with other traits. Purebred animals have a single, recognizable breed, and purebreds with recorded lineage are called pedigreed. Crossbreeds are a mix of two purebreds, whereas mixed breeds are a mix of several breeds, often unknown. Animal …
History
Selective breeding of both plants and animals has been practiced since early prehistory; key species such as wheat, rice, and dogs have been significantly different from their wild ancestors for millennia, and maize, which required especially large changes from teosinte, its wild form, was selectively bred in Mesoamerica. Selective breeding was practiced by the Romans. Treatises as much as 2,000 years old give advice on selecting animals for different purposes, and these anci…
Plant breeding
Plant breeding has been used for thousands of years, and began with the domestication of wild plants into uniform and predictable agricultural cultigens. High-yielding varieties have been particularly important in agriculture.
Selective plant breeding is also used in research to produce transgenic animals that breed "true" (i.e., are homozygous) for artificially inserted or deleted genes.
Selective breeding in aquaculture
Selective breeding in aquaculture holds high potential for the genetic improvement of fish and shellfish. Unlike terrestrial livestock, the potential benefits of selective breeding in aquaculture were not realized until recently. This is because high mortality led to the selection of only a few broodstock, causing inbreeding depression, which then forced the use of wild broodstock. This was evident in selective breeding programs for growth rate, which resulted in slow growth and hi…
Advantages and disadvantages
Selective breeding is a direct way to determine if a specific trait can evolve in response to selection. A single-generation method of breeding is not as accurate or direct. The process is also more practical and easier to understand than sibling analysis. Selective breeding is better for traits such as physiology and behavior that are hard to measure because it requires fewer individuals to test than single-generation testing.
See also
• Animal breeding
• Animal husbandry
• Breed registry
• Breeding back
• Captive breeding
Bibliography
• Darwin, Charles (2004). The Origin of Species. London: CRW Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-904633-78-5.