Search Results (5)

(1) Background: The Hulunbuir sheep is a Chinese local sheep breed with good meat quality and exceptional cold-stress resilience. However, the growth performance of the Hulunbuir sheep is lower when compared to that of commercial breeds. Growth traits such as body weight and body size are critical, as they directly influence the meat production in sheep farming. Employing genome-wide association studies can identify SNPs and candidate genes related to growth traits in Hulunbuir sheep. (2) Methods: The chest girth (CG), cannon circumference (CC), hip width (HW), body height (BH), and body length (BL) of 799 Hulunbuir sheep were measured. All the animals were divided into three groups according to their age (Group 1: 0–6 months old, Group 2: 12–24 months old, Group 3: 48–70 months old). Subsequently, genotyping was carried out using the Sheep 40K liquid chip. A multi-trait genome-wide association study (MT-GWAS) was performed for each group of animals. (3) Results: A total of three candidate genes (SLC9C1, VSTM2A, FRG1) associated with body size traits were identified through GWAS analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment for Group 2. (4) Conclusions: This study identified three candidate genes related to body size in Hulunbuir sheep, providing genetic targets for marker-assisted selection (MAS) in Hulunbuir sheep. Full article

Cell types have been established during organogenesis based on early mouse embryos. However, our understanding of cell types and molecular mechanisms in the early embryo development of Mongolian sheep has been hampered. This study presents the first comprehensive single-cell transcriptomic characterization at E16 in Ujumqin sheep and Hulunbuir short-tailed sheep. Thirteen major cell types were identified at E16 in Ujumqin sheep, and eight major cell types were identified at E16 in Hulunbuir short-tailed sheep. Function enrichment analysis showed that several pathways were significantly enriched in the TGF-beta signaling pathway, the Hippo signaling pathway, the platelet activation pathway, the riboflavin metabolism pathway, the Wnt signaling pathway, regulation of the actin cytoskeleton, and the insulin signaling pathway in the notochord cluster. Glutathione metabolism, glyoxylate, and dicarboxylate metabolism, the citrate cycle, thyroid hormone synthesis, pyruvate metabolism, cysteine and methionine metabolism, thermogenesis, and the VEGF signaling pathway were significantly enriched in the spinal cord cluster. Steroid biosynthesis, riboflavin metabolism, the cell cycle, the Hippo signaling pathway, the Hedgehog signaling pathway, the FoxO signaling pathway, the JAK-STAT signaling pathway, and the Wnt signaling pathway were significantly enriched in the paraxial mesoderm cluster. The notochord cluster, spinal cord cluster, and paraxial mesoderm cluster were found to be highly associated with tail development. Pseudo-time analysis demonstrated that the mesenchyme can translate to the notochord in Ujumqin sheep. Molecular assays revealed that the Hippo signaling pathway was enriched in Ujumqin sheep. This comprehensive single-cell map revealed previously unrecognized signaling pathways that will further our understanding of the mechanism of short-tailed sheep formation. Full article

Unregulated livestock breeding and grazing can degrade grasslands and damage the ecological environment. The combination of remote sensing and artificial intelligence techniques is a more convenient and powerful means to acquire livestock information in a large area than traditional manual ground investigation. As a mainstream remote sensing platform, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can obtain high-resolution optical images to detect grazing livestock in grassland. However, grazing livestock objects in UAV images usually occupy very few pixels and tend to gather together, which makes them difficult to detect and count automatically. This paper proposes the GLDM (grazing livestock detection model), a lightweight and high-accuracy deep-learning model, for detecting grazing livestock in UAV images. The enhanced CSPDarknet (ECSP) and weighted aggregate feature re-extraction pyramid modules (WAFR) are constructed to improve the performance based on the YOLOX-nano network scheme. The dataset of different grazing livestock (12,901 instances) for deep learning was made from UAV images in the Hadatu Pasture of Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, China. The results show that the proposed method achieves a higher comprehensive detection precision than mainstream object detection models and has an advantage in model size. The $mAP$ of the proposed method is 86.47%, with the model parameter 5.7 M. The average recall and average precision can be above 85% at the same time. The counting accuracy of grazing livestock in the testing dataset, when converted to a unified sheep unit, reached 99%. The scale applicability of the model is also discussed, and the GLDM could perform well with the image resolution varying from 2.5 to 10 cm. The proposed method, the GLDM, was better for detecting grassland grazing livestock in UAV images, combining remote sensing, AI, and grassland ecological applications with broad application prospects. Full article

Nematodirus causes major economic losses in the development of the livestock industry, as they are common gastrointestinal parasites of cattle, sheep, and other ruminants. The present study investigated Nematodirus infections in sheep in the Hulunbuir and Xilingol Grasslands, two well-known natural pastures in Inner Mongolia, China. The results indicated that the average infection rate was more than 50%. Furthermore, a naturally occurring strain of Nematodirus was obtained using numerous isolation methods in the survey region. Conventional morphology and molecular biology were used to identify the strain. The larval migration inhibition test was used to determine the ivermectin level in the isolated strain. The results indicated that the larvae belonged to the species Nematodirus oiratianus. The strain was found to be ivermectin-resistant. Thus, these results recorded the detailed development processes of Nematodirus eggs, providing novel insights regarding the prevention and control of nematodes by using conventional anthelmintic regimens and by offering valuable species resources for studying anthelmintic resistance in nematodes. Full article

With the population growth and the upgrading of residents’ food consumption structures, the consumption demand for herbivorous animal products will maintain relatively rapid growth. However, restrictive factors for the development of herbivorous animal husbandry in pastoral areas have increased, and how to undertake herbivorous animal husbandry in agricultural areas has become the focus of widespread social concern. This study is based on survey data of Najitun Farm of Hulunbuir Agricultural Reclamation in China. Through field investigation and computer simulation technology of system dynamics, a development system of herbivorous animal husbandry in agricultural areas was established with the development of herbivorous animal husbandry at the core, and the balance of grassland-livestock and the combination of planting-breeding as the constraint. Moreover, the system designs the development strategy compared with the development of system inertia—strengthening and optimizing herbivorous animal husbandry and optimizing the structure of grain, economy, and the feed planting industry, and simulates the above three scenarios, respectively. The study found that without any development strategy, the inertia trend is subject to the influence of factors such as the scale of female livestock, epidemic diseases, and breeding level, so it is difficult to realize the sustainable development of the industry in the next five years. However, expanding the scale of breeding alone will occupy too much environmental capacity, and there will be a shortage in the supply of grass for a long time. According to the scheme of optimizing the structure of the grain, economy, and feed planting industry, it will not only provide feed sources for grass-feeding livestock of about 58,200 sheep units, but also realize the total agricultural output value of USD 7.02 million by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan, which is 1.89 times of the inertia trend. At the same time, the nutrient demand of grass crops has alleviated 20.42% of the environmental pressure. Based on the results of this study, it is proven that herbivorous animal husbandry has a broad development potential in agricultural areas, and at the same time, it contributes to decisions of developing herbivorous animal husbandry in agricultural areas. This study has important theoretical and practical significance for expanding the industrial space and building a new type of planting-breeding relationship. Full article