Traits that could boost livestock productivity found

[内罗毕]非洲土著牛的特征使它们能够生存下来的热量，drought和疾病such as trypanosomiasis, giving hope of breeding a new, superior generation that could boost productivity, astudy找到了。

Researchers say that interventions such as selection of cattle breeds that can address challenges such as absence of vaccine and increasing drug resistance are urgently needed to boostlivestock在撒哈拉以南非洲的生产。

该研究发表在Nature Genetics，涉及对非洲土著牛基因组的完整基因的分析。它产生了一个证据，表明土著牧民牧民开始用当地的牛磺酸品种繁殖亚洲Zebu牛，这提供了允许牛在非洲典型的炎热，干燥的气候中生存的特征埃塞俄比亚和索马里。

“If cattle pastoralism was so successful on the Eastern part of the African continent, it was because of ancient crossbreeding”

奥利维尔·哈诺特（Olivier Hanotte），国际牲畜研究所

但是，出现的新牛保留了牛磺酸的持久潮湿气候的能力，在这种气候中，诸如锥虫病等媒介疾病很常见。

“我们目前的育种策略与过去没有什么不同。一千年前，它使我们能够殖民新的栖息地。今天，它将[美国]能够应对牲畜产品的市场需求，并影响数百万的生计小持有人该研究的合着者，总部位于肯尼亚的国际牲畜研究所的首席科学家奥利维尔·哈诺特（Olivier Hanotte）说。

The findings resulted from a collaborative effort to analyse the genomes of 172 indigenous cattle.
Hanotte, a professor of genetics at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, says that insights gained from this study can be used to breed a new generation of African cattle that holds some of the qualities of European and American livestock that produce more milk and meat per animal but with the rich mosaic of traits that make African cattle more resilient and可持续的。

“如果牛牧民在非洲大陆的东部如此成功，那是因为非洲牛磺酸和亚洲Zebu之间的一场古老的杂交事件，这一事实使我们现在约有1000年前的历史了。”。“幸运的是，我们不必等待1000年才能获得最终产品。我们拥有基于遗传标记的选择工具和策略，使我们能够在几代人中实现几百年的人类选择。”

研究人员确定了两个热休克蛋白基因和一个与水相关的基因。在非洲和亚洲Zebu或驼峰牛。他们还发现了与驼峰对tick虫和tick虫疾病（例如东海岸发烧）的抗性有关的免疫相关基因，并可能赋予人们对病毒感染的耐受性，包括裂谷发烧和脚踏症。

“These findings are far-reaching in today’s context of improving livestock productivity to respond to the needs of the growing human populations, with further crossbreeding of indigenous African cattle with exotic cattle recommended as one of the pathways for the continent’s food security,” the study says.

纳尔逊·曼德拉非洲科学技术学会的博士后科学家安德鲁·乔塔（Andrew Chota）告诉scidev.net这一发现是使用遗传信息改善我们的牲畜的未来努力的基础。

“畜牧业在非洲是非常重要的。李vestock provides营养和contribute to economic growth and household resilience,” explains Chota. “A key feature of livestock in Africa is that they fulfil multiple roles, ranging from draught power, to providing manure, milk and meat.”

“Drought, ticks and diseases are really the big threats to livestock productivity in Africa,” he adds.

但是他说，许多研究结果被搁置了。“这是我的担心。从这一发现结果的翻译中，我们需要对非洲人的理解和承诺governments在开发合作伙伴的帮助下，预算相同。”他解释说。

这件作品由Scidev.net的撒哈拉以南非洲英语桌子制作。