ABSTRACT GRAHAM, JASON ROBERT. Assessment of Crossbred
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ABSTRACT GRAHAM, JASON ROBERT. Assessment of Crossbred Dairy Cattle for Heat Tolerance in a Pasture-Based System. (Under the direction of Dr. Francesco Tiezzi). Heat stress has a large impact on dairy cattle production and welfare throughout the world and is expected to be exacerbated due to global climate change. Ways to ameliorate heat stress, such as environmental modifications, nutrition and genetic selection have been proposed. Most genetic selection for heat tolerance so far has been performed in purebred dairy cattle through the analysis of routine and novel traits using robust statistical methods. Furthermore, genomic selection and identification of candidate genes for heat tolerance have shown promise in creating more thermotolerant dairy herds. However, inbreeding depression has a negative effect on the fitness of purebred animals, which is of major concern to the dairy industry at large. Crossbreeding has been used in many species to take advantage of hybrid vigor and reverse the detrimental effects of inbreeding. However, crossbreeding of dairy cattle in the United States is still uncommon, but interest is growing due to a rise in organic and pasture-based dairy systems, which are more common in countries such as New Zealand and Ireland. This is because most pasture-based dairy farms are seasonally calving and therefore emphasis is placed on fitness traits. Pasture-based dairy systems are also the most affected by heat stress related production losses because they lack environmental modifications needed to cool lactating dairy cattle in warm weather. Therefore, the primary objective in this thesis was to evaluate crossbred performance for dairy cattle in a pasture- based system to determine if crossbreeding provides resistance to predicted losses due to heat stress. The results from our study demonstrated that the greatest impact of performance when the environment became more challenging was due to the proportion of breed ancestry in the cow. Dairy cows with greater Holstein ancestry had better performance for milk yield, protein yield, fat yield and SCS, while those with greater Jersey breed ancestry had produced milk with higher protein and fat percentage. Furthermore, the F1 crossbred animals, particularly those with Jersey dams, were as competitive with the purebred Holstein animals for production yield traits. The results reported in this thesis showed that crossbreeding has potential for maintaining performance when the environment becomes more challenging to dairy cattle in a pasture-based system. © Copyright 2020 by Jason Graham All Rights Reserved Assessment of Crossbred Dairy Cattle for Heat Tolerance in a Pasture-Based System by Jason Robert Graham A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Animal Science Raleigh, North Carolina 2019 APPROVED BY: _______________________________ _______________________________ Dr. Francesco Tiezzi Dr. Stephanie Ward Committee Chair _______________________________ Dr. Dahlia Nielsen DEDICATION First, I dedicate this thesis to my fiancée Shelby, who has been my biggest cheerleader, even when things became difficult and nights became long. To my Father and Grandfather for their financial support. To my Mother, and my late Grandmother, for instilling in me the curiosity, passion and love of biology and animal husbandry at a young age. Finally, I dedicate this thesis to all my fellow graduate students and friends who I have made throughout my journey in graduate school. ii BIOGRAPHY Jason R. Graham was born in Yucaipa, California to Jennifer and Steven Graham. He grew up on a small hobby farm where he learned how to ride horses, raise poultry, goats and other animals as well as tend to fruit trees and vegetables. He moved to North Carolina after high school and began his college career at Stanly Community College in Albemarle, NC, where he graduated with an Associates in Science. After transferring to North Carolina State University, he graduated summa cum laude with an Animal Science degree. Immediately afterward, he began pursuing his Master of Science in Animal Science degree under the direction of Dr. Francesco Tiezzi. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I would like to acknowledge my mentor Dr. Francesco Tiezzi, for always being available and patient when I’m trying to understand new concepts and for making me a better scientist. I would like to thank all the professors at NC State that have helped broaden my expertise and understanding. I would like to acknowledge my friends, Sarah Allen, Dr. Jennifer Moore, and Hannah Wackel for helping proofread portions of my thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my cohorts and colleagues, He Yuqing, Emmanuel Lozada Soto and Dr. Piush “Sweetie” Khanal for always having my back and making me laugh when things got tough. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ vi LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... vii Chapter 1. Literature Review ..................................................................................................... 1 Heat Stress ..................................................................................................................... 2 The Thermoneutral Zone and Temperature-Humidity Index ............................ 3 Heat Stress and Fertility ..................................................................................... 4 Heat Stress and Production Traits ...................................................................... 5 Regional Impact ................................................................................................. 6 Climate Change .................................................................................................. 7 Environmental modification .............................................................................. 7 Selection for Thermotolerance ........................................................................... 8 Organic and Pasture-based systems ............................................................................. 12 Selection for Animals in Pasture-Based systems ............................................. 14 Crossbreeding .............................................................................................................. 16 Hybrid Vigor .................................................................................................... 17 Breed Utilization .............................................................................................. 18 Crossbreeding for Thermotolerance ................................................................ 20 References .................................................................................................................... 22 Chapter 2. Evaluation of crossbred dairy cattle performance when exposed to a range of temperature and humidity in a pasture-based system ....................................................... 40 Abstract ........................................................................................................................ 41 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 43 Materials and Methods ................................................................................................. 46 Management and Animals ............................................................................... 46 Traits ................................................................................................................ 48 Meteorological-Information ............................................................................. 49 Statistical Analyses .......................................................................................... 50 Results and Discussion ................................................................................................ 52 Environmental descriptors and effects ............................................................. 53 Effect of Breed and Heterosis ......................................................................... 54 Effect of Breed and Heterosis Interaction with the Environment ................... 57 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 60 References ................................................................................................................... 62 Chapter 3. Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 83 APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................. 86 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Number of animals observed and genetic expectations for each breed group ......... 70 Table 2. Correlations between genetic covariates of direct Holstein breed (%) and heterosis .................................................................................................................... 71 Table 3. Values used for classifying environmental descriptors ............................................ 72 Table 4. Descriptive statistics of overall herd ........................................................................ 73 Table 5. F-value and