First results of research Irene Breider presented at BSAS conference

Hi, I’m Irene Breider and earlier this year I presented the first results of my PhD at the BSAS annual conference. My PhD (a joint collaboration between The University of Nottingham and SRUC) focusses on the genetic and genomic background of methane emission and feed efficiency in dairy cattle. To start off my project I analysed data from the research herd at SRUC, where methane is measured with the use of a laser methane detector. The herd I’m looking at originates from 2 genetic lines (212 cows), a high producing line and a line producing on commercial farm level. The cows were fed either a high energy diet or a low energy diet. Based on this data I estimated heritability for methane emission (0.04 (0.02)) and correlations with production and efficiency traits. Unfortunately, due to the size of the dataset heritability and correlations found were not significant. However, results do show that there likely is a small genetic component to methane emission and therefore genetic selection is possible. As more data became available after the conference I’m currently working hard on extending these analyses. It was a great experience to attend BSAS 2016, have my first experience in presenting at a conference and meeting other scientists in this field in real life.

Irene Breider