Beef Symposium: The evolution of beef cattle genetic evaluation1

During the 100-yr history of the American Society of Animal Science, there have been many tools that have been offered to the beef producers of the world. Advancements in reproductive and nutritional technologies have had major impacts on how cattle are managed. However, the advent of beef performance recording and the subsequent advancements in methodology for genetic evaluations and applications of that methodology to utilizing those data have dramatically changed the beef population. The purpose of genetic evaluation is to harness the power of selection into a tool that can be used by producers to improve their stock. The evolution of genetic evaluations has taken us from making selection decisions based on phenotypic observations on individuals to making genetic predictions of those individuals resulting from the analysis of millions of records from both national and international sources across multiple breeds. However, animal agriculture is currently in a period of transition prompted by the advent of molecular biology. From the late 1980s until the present, great advancements have been made in molecular technologies, and it was initially thought that predictions of genetic merit from molecular assessment would replace genetic evaluations as the primary tool for making selection decisions. It is now recognized that there is a need to integrate the 2 technologies into a more reliable selection tool for producers. This challenge was the focus of the Beef Symposium held on July 8, 2008, at the joint annual meeting of the American Society of Animal Science and the American Dairy Science Association in Indianapolis, IN. The purpose of this symposium was to review the advancements that have been made in genetic evaluations and to take an in-depth look at fully exploiting its future potential as a conduit for delivering molecular information integrated with the traditional phenotypic and pedigree information.