1. International Animal Improvement João Walter Dürr Interbull Centre Director Uppsala, Sweden

2. Organization Structure ICAR Interbull... Interbull Centre Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences - SLU

3. Organization Structure Interbull Members Business Meeting Steering Committee Scient. Adv. Committee Technical Committee Interbull Centre

4. ICAR & Interbull members

5. Interbull Objectives Non-profit organization n Communication: publications, meetings, workshops, homepage n Conduct R&D n Technology support to members n International genetic evaluations

6. Interbull n Multiple-trait Across-Country Evaluation (MACE) n Two-step procedure –National breeding values calculated by each country –International breeding values calculated by Interbull

7. Interbull Evaluation Process  Check of incoming data  Build a global pedigree file  Build a cross-reference file  Estimation of sire variance  Estimation of genetic correlations among countries  Estimation of sire variance  Prediction of international genetic merits  Post-evaluation Routine run, 3 times/yearTest run, 2 times/year

8. Multiple-trait Across Country Evaluation (MACE) Multiple-trait sire model Multiple-trait sire model: y i = country i + sire i + error i  Each country considered as different trait  Deregressed national genetic evaluation results as input

9. MACE visualised Country A Bull A6 Bull A3 Bull B3 Country B Bull B6 Bull B5 Bull B3 Bull B1

10. MACE visualised Country A Bull A6 Bull A3 Bull B3 Country B Bull B6 Bull B5 Bull B3 Bull B1

11. MACE visualised Country A Bull A6 Bull A3 Bull B3 Country B Bull B6 Bull B5 Bull B3 Bull B1 Country A Bull A6 Bull A3 Bull B5 Bull B3 Bull B6 Bull B1 Country B Bull A6 Bull B6 Bull B5 Bull B3 Bull A3 Bull B1 MACE International ranking

12. Interbull Current Status n Administrative changes n Research projects n Future challenges n Upcoming events

13. Interbull administrative changes n Streamlining –Project manager: Dr. Jarmo Juga, Finland –Business plan + documentation –Database Beef Dairy Cooperation with Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut –Data editing and genetic evaluations Review and optimize all codes and flows Standardize file formats Evaluation Package

14. Interbull administrative changes n Communication –Improve dramatically links with industry –Simplify the message to dairymen –Amplify visibility of country members –Brand new web page Comprehensive links Educational material Open discussion forums More frequent newsletters Services

15. Interbull research projects –Interbeef Charolais, Simmental France, UK, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway INRA –Animal Model Pedigree –Multiple Trait Effective daughter contributions (MT-EDC) CDN – Pete Sullivan Calving traits – Hossein Jorjani –Variance components estimation for MACE MTT Agrifood Research, Finland

16. Interbull future challenges –Genomic international evaluations Interbull Task Force International Workshop –Interbull Strategic Planning –Interbeef Service/routine evaluations New breeds, countries Methodologies Genomics –Cloning –Monitoring genetic diversity

17. Interbull upcoming events –International Workshop Genomic Information in Genetic Evaluations January 26-29, 2009 SLU - Uppsala, Sweden –Annual Meeting EAAP August 21-23, 2009 Barcelona, Spain

18. Congratulations, AIPL! Joao.Durr@Hgen.SLU.se