Optimal algorithms for mating systems using selection indexes

Abstract

Animal breeding involves directing the next generation’s genetics and phenotypic traits towards animal health and financial profits for the production system, using essentially two strategies: the selection and the mating systems. The mating system aims to provide a set of sire-dam pairs, producing the best animals according to some selection criteria and a mating strategy for the animals chosen for reproduction. This paper presents an R-package to compute the best pairing scheme to obtain optimal polynomial-time solutions for either mating between peers or compensatory mating. The algorithm for optimal mating runs in worst-case O(nm)-time while the compensatory mating takes O(m3), where n is the number of sires and m is the number of dams.