In Laboratory Animals

Abstract

Three questions which may be appropriately raised and at least partially answered at this symposium on selection are: What livestock selection problems may be aided in their solution by laboratory animal selection experiments? What features should be incorporated in the plans and analyses of laboratory animal selection experiments so that the results may be most readily transferred to other species as a guide in solving their selection problems? What have laboratory animal experiments already contributed to our understanding of the application of genetic theory to selection? The solutions to many of the problems in livestock selection and mating systems have been worked out theoretically in terms of the statistical consequences of the Mendelian mechanism. Very few experimental checks of these logical conclusions have been made and could well be made with laboratory animals to learn the extent to which observation fails to conform to expectation and, if possible, the reason for any non-conformance.