Dark Genes: On genetic variation hidden in the transmission of infectious diseases

Summary

Infectious diseases form a continuous threat to the health and welfare of animals in agriculture. Several interventions, such as vaccination, exist to combat infectious diseases. Genetic selection of the animals to make them less susceptible to infections is also considered an interesting intervention. The current approach in animal breeding to select for lower infection susceptibility, however, purely focusses on the individual animal, ignoring the fact that infections are transmitted from animal to animal in populations. This thesis shows that by ignoring the transmission of infections, breeders miss a considerable part of the heritable variation. Thereby, the potential of genetic selection to reduce the impact of infectious diseases in livestock populations is much larger than always thought.