Know more

About cookies

What is a "cookie"?

A "cookie" is a piece of information, usually small and identified by a name, which may be sent to your browser by a website you are visiting. Your web browser will store it for a period of time, and send it back to the web server each time you log on again.

Different types of cookies are placed on the sites:

Cookies strictly necessary for the proper functioning of the site
Cookies deposited by third party sites to improve the interactivity of the site, to collect statistics

Learn more about cookies and how they work

The different types of cookies used on this site

Cookies strictly necessary for the site to function

These cookies allow the main services of the site to function optimally. You can technically block them using your browser settings but your experience on the site may be degraded.

Furthermore, you have the possibility of opposing the use of audience measurement tracers strictly necessary for the functioning and current administration of the website in the cookie management window accessible via the link located in the footer of the site.

Technical cookies

Name of the cookie	Purpose	Shelf life
CAS and PHP session cookies	Login credentials, session security	Session
Tarteaucitron	Saving your cookie consent choices	12 months

Audience measurement cookies (AT Internet)

Name of the cookie	Purpose	Shelf life
atid	Trace the visitor's route in order to establish visit statistics.	13 months
atuserid	Store the anonymous ID of the visitor who starts the first time he visits the site	13 months
atidvisitor	Identify the numbers (unique identifiers of a site) seen by the visitor and store the visitor's identifiers.	13 months

About the AT Internet audience measurement tool :

AT Internet's audience measurement tool Analytics is deployed on this site in order to obtain information on visitors' navigation and to improve its use.

The French data protection authority (CNIL) has granted an exemption to AT Internet's Web Analytics cookie. This tool is thus exempt from the collection of the Internet user's consent with regard to the deposit of analytics cookies. However, you can refuse the deposit of these cookies via the cookie management panel.

Good to know:

The data collected are not cross-checked with other processing operations
The deposited cookie is only used to produce anonymous statistics
The cookie does not allow the user's navigation on other sites to be tracked.

Third party cookies to improve the interactivity of the site

This site relies on certain services provided by third parties which allow :

to offer interactive content;
improve usability and facilitate the sharing of content on social networks;
view videos and animated presentations directly on our website;
protect form entries from robots;
monitor the performance of the site.

These third parties will collect and use your browsing data for their own purposes.

How to accept or reject cookies

When you start browsing an eZpublish site, the appearance of the "cookies" banner allows you to accept or refuse all the cookies we use. This banner will be displayed as long as you have not made a choice, even if you are browsing on another page of the site.

You can change your choices at any time by clicking on the "Cookie Management" link.

You can manage these cookies in your browser. Here are the procedures to follow: Firefox; Chrome; Explorer; Safari; Opera

For more information about the cookies we use, you can contact INRAE's Data Protection Officer by email at cil-dpo@inrae.fr or by post at :

INRAE

24, chemin de Borde Rouge -Auzeville - CS52627 31326 Castanet Tolosan cedex - France

Last update: May 2021

Reintroduction of genetic diversity in populations from frozen semen: The case of Abondance, a local French dairy cattle breed

Results of a scientific study conducted with CRB-Anim, the animal pillar of RARe.

Genetic diversity is the genetic variability between individuals in the same population or between populations. In the case of livestock, breeds are often equated with populations, and the diversity they contain is essential for their evolution and adaptation. However, breeding is about selecting the best individuals and therefore does not maintain the full diversity of animals. However, it is possible to freeze semen from bulls to preserve it and potentially use it later.

We studied the impact of such use through one of the only known concrete cases, in the Abondance cattle breed, a local breed of the French Alps, where the semen of an old bull was used to reintroduce diversity lost over time.

The motivation for using this bull, named Naïf, was to reintroduce an extinct lineage. He was born in 1977, used once from 1980 to 1993, and then used a second time from 2004 to 2009 to produce 45 and 33 offspring respectively. Using pedigrees and molecular data, we were able to study the impact of such reintroduction on genetic diversity and performance. Indeed, Naïf was genetically very original compared to the other sires used in the breed in the 2000s. In addition, he also brought diversity by reducing the average level of inbreeding in the breed because, since this line had almost disappeared, the females with which he was bred were little or not related to Naïf. However, his performance, especially in terms of milk, was that of a bull from the 1980s, and therefore much lower than that of bulls from the 2000s, due to the selection carried out during all these years. This drop in productivity could have been a brake on the reintroduction of "old" genetic diversity, but this was largely circumvented by the choice of using the semen on the best cows available during its second use. Conversely, the reintroduction of this old sire in the selection scheme of the Abondance breed allowed to improve the reproductive performances which had been degraded in the course of time because they had not been selected in the past and were negatively linked to the dairy performances. Therefore, the use of frozen semen from an old sire has proven to be an effective option to reintroduce genetic diversity in an animal breed. However, the choice of females receiving this semen is crucial to combine diversity and performance.

This example shows the interest of a cryobank which should not only be used to store semen as in a museum, but also be used in current populations for a dynamic management of their diversity. This relies on a precise characterization of the available collections, in particular with the help of molecular tools. These results could be transposed to the management of threatened wild populations in order to reintroduce genetic diversity, provided that seed freezing/thawing techniques are well mastered for these species.

Contacts :

Alicia.jacques@inrae.fr
Michele.boichard@inrae.fr
Gwendal.restoux@inrae.fr