Megan Scholtens

Citation

Thesis Title
Genetic and genomic studies on milk production and composition, and longevity in New Zealand dairy goats

Read article at Massey Research Online:

New Zealand has a well-established goat milk industry that produces and exports high value products. Implementing a breeding program includes routine genetic evaluation enabling farmers to select the best parents to produce the next generation. Miss Scholtens used complex statistical models to analyse the genes of New Zealand dairy goats and investigated including genomic information in the evaluation. She produced genetic parameters required for the evaluation and identified two highly significant regions on the goat genome that influence milk production traits. She also developed a prototype single-step genomic prediction model and demonstrated that including genomic information increases prediction accuracies. These results contribute to the design of a breeding program providing an opportunity to rapidly increase the quantity and composition of goat milk produced in New Zealand.

Supervisors
Professor Nicolas Lopez-Villalobos
Professor Hugh Blair
Professor Dorian Garrick