title: Review: How to improve genomic predictions in small dairy cattle populations.
abstract: This paper reviews strategies and methods to improve accuracies of genomic predictions from the perspective of a numerically small population. Improvements are realized by influencing one or both of the main factors: (1) improve or increase genomic connections to phenotypic records in training data. (2) Models and strategies to focus genomic predictions on markers closer to the causative variants. Combining populations into a joint reference population results in high improvements when combining populations of the same breed and diminishes as the genetic distance between populations increases. For distantly related breeds sophisticated Bayesian variable selection models in combination with denser markers sets or functional subsets of markers is needed. This is expected to be further improved by the efficient use of sequence information. In addition predictions can be improved by the use of phenotypes of genotyped and non-genotyped cows directly. For a small population the optimal approach will combine the above components.
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics,Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics,Aarhus University,Blichers Allé 20,DK-8830 Tjele,Denmark.
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Lund
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics,Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics,Aarhus University,Blichers Allé 20,DK-8830 Tjele,Denmark.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: van den Berg
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics,Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics,Aarhus University,Blichers Allé 20,DK-8830 Tjele,Denmark.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics,Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics,Aarhus University,Blichers Allé 20,DK-8830 Tjele,Denmark.
authors.forename: R F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Brøndum
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics,Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics,Aarhus University,Blichers Allé 20,DK-8830 Tjele,Denmark.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Su
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D002417:Cattle / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D003612:Dairying; D016678:Genome / Q000235:genetics; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D005838:Genotype; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010641:Phenotype; D011156:Population Density; D012015:Reference Standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D000068618:Selective Breeding