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Selective Breeding

Selective breeding involves humans breeding plants and animals for desirable traits such as disease resistance, increased yield, and improved taste in plants, and desirable characteristics like milk production and temperament in animals. While it can lead to beneficial traits, selective breeding may also cause inbreeding, reducing genetic diversity and increasing vulnerability to diseases and genetic defects. An example of selective breeding is the domestication of dogs from wolves and the development of various plant species from wild brassica.

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6 views3 pages

Selective Breeding

Selective breeding involves humans breeding plants and animals for desirable traits such as disease resistance, increased yield, and improved taste in plants, and desirable characteristics like milk production and temperament in animals. While it can lead to beneficial traits, selective breeding may also cause inbreeding, reducing genetic diversity and increasing vulnerability to diseases and genetic defects. An example of selective breeding is the domestication of dogs from wolves and the development of various plant species from wild brassica.

Uploaded by

ranukiriyeesha
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© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

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1. Selective breeding of plants


• Plants are selectively bred by humans for development of many characteristics, including:
 Disease resistance in food crops
 Increased crop yield
 Hardiness to weather conditions (e.g. drought tolerance)
 Better tasting fruits
 Large or unusual flowers Ex: roses and orchids

An example of a plant that has been selectively bred in multiple ways is wild brassica, which has

given rise to cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, kale and kohlrabi:

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Problems with selective breeding
• Selective breeding can lead to ‘inbreeding.’
• This occurs when only the ‘best’ animals or plants (which are closely related to each other) are bred
together.
• This results in a reduction in the gene pool – this is a reduction in the number of alleles (different
versions of genes) in a population.
• As inbreeding limits, the size of the gene pool, there is an increased chance of:
-Organisms inheriting harmful genetic defects

-Organisms being vulnerable to new diseases (there is less chance of resistant

allele being present in the reduced gene pool)

[Link] Breeding of Animals


• Selective breeding or artificial selection means to select individuals with desirable characteristics
and breed them together.
• The process doesn’t stop there, because it’s likely that not all of the offspring will show the
characteristics you want. So, offspring that do show the desired characteristics are selected and
bred together.
• This process has to be repeated for many successive generations before you can definitely say you
have a ‘newbreed’ that will reliably show those selected characteristics in all offspring.

Animals are commonly selectively bred for various characteristics, including:

 Cows, goats and sheep that produce lots of milk or meat.


 Chickens that lay large eggs
 Domestic dogs that have a gentle nature
 Sheep with good quality wool

• An example of an animal that has been selectively bred by humans in many ways to produce
breeds with many different characteristics is the domestic dog, all breeds of which are
descended from wolves:

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