Clustering of countries based on dairy productivity characteristics of Holstein cattle for breeding material selection

Abstract

Background and Aim: The aim of any breeding process is to create a herd based on certain parameters that reflect an ideal animal vision. Targeted herding involves selecting the source of breeding material to be imported from another country. Therefore, there is a problem in selecting a breeding material importer to rapidly form a uterine canopy with the required properties. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a set of predictive milk productivity traits in Holstein cattle across countries. Materials and Methods: This research was based on records of 819,358 recorded animals from 28 countries born after January 1, 2018, from open databases. We used the Euclidean metric to construct dendrograms characterizing the similarity of countries according to the complex milk productivity traits of the daughters of bulls. The Ward method was used to minimize intracluster variance when forming clusters and constructing the corresponding diagrams. Principal component analysis was used to reduce dimensionality and eliminate the effect of multicollinearity. The principal components were selected using the Kaiser–Harris criteria. Results: A ranking of multidimensional complex milk productivity traits in different countries over the past 5 years was performed. A group of leading countries led by the USA was established according to the studied indicators, and the possible reasons for such a division into groups were described. Conclusion: The pressure of purposeful artificial selection prevails in comparison with the pressure of natural selection concerning milk productivity traits in a certain group of countries, which allows specialists to choose suppliers when buying breeding animals and materials. The findings are based solely on data from recorded animals, which may not represent the entire breed population within each country, especially in regions where record-keeping may be inconsistent. It is expected that further studies will include regional data from large enterprises not part of Interbull, with mandatory verification and validation. An important element of such work is seen as the ability to compare the milk productivity of populations from different countries using a different scale, as well as studying the differentiation of countries by other selection traits of dairy. Keywords: breeding material, cattle productivity, dairy productivity traits, Holstein cattle.