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Genetic differences in working and show lines (GSD)


MrSnappy
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I'm not a particularly scientific minded person, so forgive the simplicity of my deduction, but from this I gather that working line GSDs and conformation line GSDs are no longer genetically similar. Given the divisiveness of the working/show border collie philosophies, I thought this would interest folks here. http://www.rsv2000.de/opencms/en/news/special-articels/breeding/genetische-differenzierung-des-dsh.html

 

Am I reading correctly?

 

RDM

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Very interesting but not surprising in light of the study done on Border Collies (and I don't have a link to that) that showed there was a similar genetic difference between show-bred populations and working-bred populations as there was between breeds.

 

I wanted to copy and paste a quote from the article but it won't allow me somehow to do that so here I go, doing it by hand -

Dogs whose genomes are similar to each other (similar allele frequencies) place closer to each other in the picture...The results indicate that the show-line dogs are clearly separated into their own population. In the mixed and working lines the probabilities vary, reflecting the actual "degree of mixing".

Looking at the cluster diagram, this is clearly seen.

 

Thank you for posting the link to this!

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it would be interesting to see if those dogs that do police/bite work differ genetically from the dogs that actually work sheep. I understand the German herding test has/had a little protection as part of their trials (not sure if this is still in the test). So, this might skew the genetics, but I'd be willing to bet a similar division for the Border Collie although not as great yet

edited: I know there is a significant difference in the show and working, but what about the sport lines? They often differ quite a bit in behaviour

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This study does state that they did not evaluate the working abilities (whatever that meant, whether it was stock work or police/protection work or any other sort of work) of the dogs tested, just their genetic make-up as compared to their pedigrees. They do point out near the bottom that working ability is a very complex and multi-gene characteristic.

 

Pam - The test that Melanie Chang was involved with maybe half-a-dozen years ago definitely showed a distinct division between the working-bred and show-bred Border Collies, equal to the division between different but related breeds.

 

I haven't yet been able to locate the study but I do have this quote from it - "We included a small number of kennel club registered show Border Collies (primarily of Australasian breeding) in our Border Collie sample for genotyping, the remainder of which was made up of ISDS and ABCA (working registries) registered dogs. Our phylogenetic, clustering, and principal components analyses all suggest a genetic split within the breed between working and show Border Collies that is probably as large as the genetic distances between some breeds."

 

The lab that did the study is apparently no longer in existence and so I was unable to access the material that I would have liked to link here. Perhaps someone else has a link saved to that. The chart was a fan chart but showed very similar results to the one in the GSD study referenced above.

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I pretty much scraped by in college Bio myself, but this is very interesting. Having watched the GSD degenerate over the years, it does not surprise me that certain lines have become something altogether different. I hate what the conformation ring has done to this wonderful breed. This is exactly what gave me the frame of reference to get on board with the working Border Collie community's philosophy. Thanks for posting this.

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Yes, Sue I am familiar with Ms Chang's results, however, those results could very well be influenced bt the isolated population in OZ. IOW, there is no knowledge if the working lines in OZ are included or not (although most I am sure are show bred). Hence my thoughts that the working/sport/show would show a similar diversity in the BC. Now that the Brits, Europe and the US have mixed the types it would be interesting to see results from a worldwide sample of the various types in a few years. Back when Ms Chang made her report there was not the intermixing of the types to the extent there is today and the OZ dogs came from a limited genepool which is known to create subspecies (in this case a different breed).

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And I would like to see if the GSD population has subspecies then too. Your DDR line dogs, the Czech dogs, for many years were very isolated. Bred by very different criteria. With very distinct variance in conformation and working styles/drives.

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