Selective Breeding vs Transgenesis

Selective Breeding vs Transgenesis

Selective breeding is a way for humans to nurture desirable traits in plants and animals, but it is much older and less scientific than transgenesis. In selective breeding, two members of the same species are paired as breeding partners in order to encourage desirable characteristics in the offspring. For example, cows that have been observed producing large volumes of milk may be bred to pass that trait on to ensuing generations. This process helps ensure an increase in the milk yield of future cows. In New Zealand, new apple cultivars are developed through selective breeding. This is the same technique that humans have used for thousands of years to breed plants and animals with desirable characteristics.

Apple growers use selective breeding to create new types of apples that have the desired characteristics such as, longer storage time, faster growing, Healthier, disease resistant, better flavour, pest resistant, climate tolerance etc. The use of selective breeding can produce plants with greater disease resistance; they can survive for longer periods during a drought, periods of high rainfall or extreme temperatures. This has helped the survival of individuals and populations. Selective breeding can make the plant survive what would normally cause death if it hadn’t inherited the genes it had from selective breeding, this means that crops are more reliable than they have ever been.

Breeders now have access to genetic information from apples that can make the breeding process faster and more efficient.Marker-assisted selection (MAS)uses a small number of markers (morphological, biochemical or one based on DNA/RNA variation) to check whether a seedling will produce apples with a particular trai...

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...eeding is a better and preferred option for genetic manipulation due to a few simple points:

-Selective breeding is considered more natural and ethical. Transgenesis is considered unethical by numerous environmental parties

-The effects on bio-diversity are less likely to be detrimental, as the effect caused by transgenesis. This is because recessive genes may still be present. Therefore in the event of a disaster, in which all plants created by transgenesis will die, those a result of selective breeding will not necessarily die.

Therefore I believe that selective breeding is better for species and the environment than transgenesis

References:

Allan, Richard .NCEA Level 3 Biology. Hamilton NZ: Biozone, 2013. Print. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding

http://www.biology-online.org/2/12_selective_breeding.htm