Is there value in maintaining small populations ? Example of the Dual-Purpose Belgian Blue breed.

Current status of thinking on genomic selection in dairy cattle is mostly major breed centric (e.g., Holstein) and only for traditional traits (e.g., milk yields). Once you depart from this, it becomes obvious that different, often related, issues appear (e.g., lack of large training populations, need for expensive recording of new phenotypes). Also, there is an urgent need to rethink issues that are important for sustainability of dairy production (e.g., added value foods, animal robustness). In this context, small populations (breeds/lines) could represent a potential
source of extra information to justify their maintenance. As marker densities increase, efficient dissection of different selection histories of divergent breeds or lines, potentially identifying pockets of unexploited variability will increase. A current example from the Belgian (Walloon) perspective is the Dual Purpose (DP) line of the Belgian Blue Breed (BBB), with presently around 4500 breeding females, for historical reason of which only 1500 have good pedigrees, and which is present in Belgium and northern France. Recent research, done on this line, showed its tendency to produce less saturated milk fat and to have better fertility. Results indicated that it could stay competitive in specific markets, especially because of largely increased meat value. Currently, the myostatin mutation is largely used for breeding purposes. To assess the genetic diversity of the breed, recently, over 200 genotypes (SNP50K) for nearly all breeding bulls of the last 20 years became available. HD genotypes should be available in the near future, also allowing to access selection history of this breed as being in between the 2 extreme breeds: Beef BBB (with which it shares a recent history) and Holstein-Friesian (which is related through its geographic proximity over centuries). Finally, genomic selection for DP-BBB will need to consider a single step type approach without the need of reference population and potentially relying heavily on SNP3K of cows, also with the objective to recreate relationships between animals of interest.