TY - JOUR AU - Colleau, Jean-Jacques AU - Clément, Virginie AU - Martin, Pierre AU - Palhière, Isabelle PY - 2011 DA - 2011/02/09 TI - Optimized diffusion of buck semen for saving genetic variability in selected dairy goat populations JO - BMC Genetics SP - 25 VL - 12 IS - 1 AB - Current research on quantitative genetics has provided efficient guidelines for the sustainable management of selected populations: genetic gain is maximized while the loss of genetic diversity is maintained at a reasonable rate. However, actual selection schemes are complex, especially for large domestic species, and they have to take into account many operational constraints. This paper deals with the actual selection of dairy goats where the challenge is to optimize diffusion of buck semen on the field. Three objectives are considered simultaneously: i) natural service buck replacement (NSR); ii) goat replacement (GR); iii) semen distribution of young bucks to be progeny-tested. An appropriate optimization method is developed, which involves five analytical steps. Solutions are obtained by simulated annealing and the corresponding algorithms are presented in detail. SN - 1471-2156 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2156-12-25 DO - 10.1186/1471-2156-12-25 ID - Colleau2011 ER -