Conferences

SMARTER representatives will attend numerous conferences and workshops; during these events, the latest project developments, progresses and results will be presented to the audience.

2023

• American Dairy Science Association ADSA symposium in Ottawa (Canada, 27^th June 2023). UEDIN Presentation: “When, why and how to breed for disease resilience in livestock?”.
• Jornadas AIDA 2023 in Zaragoza (Spain, 13^th – 14^th June 2023). UNILEON presentations: 1) “Precisión de diferentes algoritmos de machine learning en la predicción de la eficiencia alimentaria de ovejas lecheras utilizando información epigénetica”; 2) “Efecto de la inoculación intramamaria de un lipopolisacarido sobre la variación temporal del transcrptoma de las células somaticas de la leche en el ganado ovino: resultados preliminares”.
• 11^th International Symposium on the nutrition of Herbivores in Florianopolis (Brazil, 4^th– 8^th June 2023). INIA-UY presentation: “Breeding for improved feed efficiency and decreased methane emissions in sheep”. Posters UNILEON and INRAE: 1) “Resilience to acute underfeeding in dairy sheep diverging in feed efficiency: 1) milk yield”; 2) “Resilience to acute underfeeding in dairy sheep diverging in feed efficiency: 2) blood metabolites”.
• SFECA Conference in Tours (France, 23^rd – 25^th May 2023). INRAE presentation: “Robustesse comportementale individuelle et collective de jeunes ovins élenvé sur paroucrs: quels impacts de l’expérience précoce et du génotype? ».
• International Grassland Congress 2023 in Kentuky (USA, 18^th May 2023). INIA-UY presentation: “Regenera+.uy: designing a co innovation process to apply the principles of regenerative livestock production”.
• SVT Tagung 2023 in Zollikofen (Switzerland, 19^th April 2023). FiBL & Qualitas poster: “Genetic parameters for nematode resistance in dairy sheep”.
• Congreso Texel del Mercosur in Melilla, (Uruguay, 15^th April 2023). INIA-UY presentation: “Investigación genética en la raza TEXEL”.
• 10^th International Sheep Veterinary Congress (ISVC) in Sevilla (Spain, 6^th March 2023). INIA-UY presentations: 1) “Past, present and future of Merino in Argentina and Uruguay”; 2) “Breeding for sheep resilience and robustness”
• Kleinwiederkäuertagung 2023 (Small ruminant conference 2023) in Bern (Switzerland, 9^th February 2023). FiBL & Qualitas presentation: “Möglichkeiten der Selektion von Kleinwiederkäuern auf verbesserte Widerstandskraft gegen Nematoden”.
• Quantitative Genetics and Genomics Gordon Research Conference in Ventura (California, USA, 1^st February 2023). UEDIN presentation: “Health and Welfare Traits”.

2022

• Seminario Internacional de Lanas Finas in Tacuarembó (Uruguay, 22^nd December 2022). INIA-UY Presentations: 1) “Mejora genética del núcleo genético del CRILU y su proyección”; 2) “Propuestas tecnológicas disponibles para una producción rentable y ética de lanas de algo valor agregado en Uy”.
• 13^th Congress of the Panhellenic Union of Bioscientists (PEV) in Thessaloniki (Greece, 9^th – 11^th December 2022). AUTH presentation:“Characterization of the genetic structure and origin of Greek sheep breeds using the OvineSNP50 Genotyping BeadChip”.
• 3R (Rencontres autour des Recherches sur les Ruminants) in Paris (France, 7^th – 8^th December 2022). Presentation: “Estimation de l’efficience alimentaire des chèvres laitières, en fermes commerciales” (IDELE, INRAE, CAPGENES).
• 15^th Panhellenic Veterinary Congress in Athens (Greece, 4^th – 6^th November 2022). AUTH presentations: 1) “Repeatability of health and welfare traits and correlation with milk production in dairy goats reared in low-input farming systems”; 2) “Grazing behaviour of semi-extensively reared Boutsko sheep and association with climatic parameters”.
• Red Latinoamericana y del Caribe de Biotecnología Agropecuaria (REDBIO) in Mérida Yucatan, (México, 12^th – 15^th October 2022). INIA-UY presentation: “Agroecological Breeding: Genomic evaluation in Australian Merino sheep of Uruguay”. INIA-UY poster: “Predicciones genómicas para rasgos productivos y de valor ambiental en ovinos Merino Australiano”.
• 15^th International Congress on the Zoogeography and Ecology of Greece and Adjacent Regions (ICZEGAR) in Mytilini, Lesvos (Greece, 12^th – 15^th October 2022). AUTH posters: 1) “Genome-wide SNP profiling of Greek sheep with worldwide domestic breeds revealing population and admixture patterns”; 2) “Genome-wide characterization analysis reveals potential selection signatures in local sheep breeds”; 3) “Genome-wide assessment of local Greek goats’ diversity and comparison with global domestic breeds”.
• 73^rd EAAP Annual Meeting in Porto (Portugal, 5^th – 9^th September 2022). Presentations: “Association of milk composition traits as indicators of feed efficiency in Chios dairy ewes” (AUTH); 2) “Behavioural adaptation to rangeland and performances of lambs differing in experience and genetics” (INRAE); 3) “Consequences of contrasting feed efficiency as lamb on later ewe performance” (INIA-UY). Poster: “Rumen fatty acids linked to phenotypes in Romane lambs selected for feed efficiency” (INRAE).
• 55^th Congress of the International Society of Applied Ethology (ISAE) in Ohrid (North Macedonia, 4^th – 8^th September 2022). INRAE presentation: “How behavioural robustness in sheep reared in rangeland can be impacted by early rearing conditions and genetics?”.
• InterNordern in Skövde (Sweden, 12^th August 2022).NSG presentation: “Methane measuring in Norwegian sheep”.
• World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production (WCGALP) in Rotterdam (The Netherlands, 3^rd – 8^th July 2022). Presentations: 1) “Methane emission has low genetic correlations to lamb growth traits in Norwegian White sheep” (NSG); 2) “Using milk fatty acids as biomarkers to improve feed efficiency in dairy sheep” (UNILEON); 3) “Milk transcriptome analysis to elucidate the impact of prepubertal nutrition in dairy ewes residual feed intake” (UNILEON); 4) “Influence of a nutritional restriction in dairy ewe lambs on the response to a later inflammatory intramammary challenge” (UNILEON); 5) “Genetic analysis of colostrum and passive immune transfer in divergent goat lines selected for functional longevity” (INRAE); 6) “Using machine learning to predict feed intakes of meat sheep from animal traits and ruminal microbiota” (INRAE); 7) “Milk metabolite profiles in goats selected for longevity support link between resource allocation and resilience” (INRAE); 8) “Divergent genetic selections for social attractiveness or tolerance toward humans in sheep” (INRAE); 9) “Feed efficiency and resource allocation trade-offs: theory, evidence and prospects” (INRAE); 10) “Selection for resilience: exploring the value of genomic prediction, reaction norm models and phenotyping strategies” (UEDIN); 11) “Impact of genotypic information on genetic evaluation accuracy for mastitis and footrot in the UK Texel Sheep” (SRUC); 12) “Genetic selection of feed efficiency and methane emissions in sheep and cattle in Uruguay: progress and limitations” (INIA-UY). Posters: 1) “Genome-wide association study for milk composition traits of Canadian Alpine and Saanen goats” (UGUELPH); 2) “Feed intake can be predicted as quantitative or qualitative traits” (INRAE); 3) “Validation and genetic analysis of a feed efficiency criterion in French Lacaune ewes” (INRAE); 4) “Genetic parameters for feed efficiency in dairy goats, under commercial conditions” (INRAE, IDELE); 5) “Partition in long-term contributions of the genetic trend through a fine partitioning in Mendelian sampling ” (INRAE); 6) “Genetic parameters for feed efficiency, gas emissions, oxygen consumption and wool traits in Australian Merino” (INIA-UY); 7) “Association of genetic resistance to internal nematodes and production traits on feed efficiency and methane emissions in Corriedale lambs” (INIA-UY).
• 2022 ASAS-CSAS-SSASAS Annual Meeting & Trade Show in Oklahoma City (USA, 27^th June 2022). UGUELPH presentation: “Characterization of Genomic Diversity in Sheep Populations Based on Complementary Metrics and Its Implications for Genomic Selection”.
• 8^th International Greenhouse Gas & Animal Agriculture Conference (GGAA) in Orlando, Florida (USA 7^th June 2022). INIA-UY Posters: 1) “Methane Contrasting Groups in Three Sheep Breeds in Uruguay”; 2) “Correlations between Methane Emissions and Production Traits in Australian Merino Sheep”.
• Workshop “From the Neolithic to the biotechnological era: old and new development scenarios for sheep farming, an economic resource and a common cultural heritage – CUIA” in Buenos Aires (Argentina. 11^th May 2022). INIA-UY presentation: “Agroecological Breeding of sheep in Uruguay: genetic and genomic tools”.
• British Society of Animal Science (BSAS) conference in Nottingham (United Kingdom, 12^th – 14^th April 2022). SRUC presentations 1) “The genetics of body condition score in Scottish Blackface hill ewes”; 2) “The impact of genotypic information on changes in breeding value accuracy for health traits in meat sheep”.
• 96^th Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society in Leuven (Belgium, 4^th – 6^th April 2022). AUTH poster: “Modeling animal performance under infectious and non-infectious challenges: The case of Chios sheep”.

2021

• Conference of the Hellenic Zootechnical Society in Athens (Greece, 7^th November 2021). FRIZARTA oral presentation: “Ratios of somatic cell subpopulations in ovine milk are affected by lactation stage and are correlated with bacterial load”.
• 24^th Congress Association of Animal Science and Production (ASPA) in Padua (Italy, 21^st – 24^th September 2021). CNR presentation.
• 72^nd Hybrid EAAP Annual Meeting in Davos (Switzerland, 30^th August – 3^rd September 2021). Presentations: 1) “Single step genetic evaluation of resistance to parasites in the Swiss Alpine goat population” (FiBL & Qualitas); 2) “The rumen microbiota is modified in lambs divergently selected for residual feed intake” (INRAE); 3) “Bench-testing future systems: combining genetics, nutrition and farm types to predict outcomes” (INRAE); 4) “First estimations of methane emissions using Sheep GreenFeed in the Romane breed” (INRAE); 5) “Plasmatic and ruminal metabolomes of lambs divergently selected on residual feed intake” (INRAE); 6) “Evaluation of different models to define a more suitable Residual Feed Intake estimation in Merino sheep” (INIA-UY); ); 7) “Livestock Disease Resilience: from individual to herd level” (UEDIN). Poster: 1) “Repeatability of udder health and welfare traits of semi-extensively reared dairy goats in Greece” (AUTH).
• Jornada cierre CRILU 2021 – project closing day (Virtual, 31st August 2021). INIA-UY presentations:  1) “Merino uruguayo: ejemplo de mejora genética participativa Uruguayan Merino: example of participatory animal breeding”; 2) “Eficiencia de conversión y emisiones e metano: bases para nuevos objetivos de selección”.
• AgroTICs: información al alcance de todos para sistemas más sostenibles (Virtual, 12^th August 2021). INIA-UY presentation: “TICs aplicadas a la medición de características relevantes en ganado bovino y ovino”.
• ISAG 2021 (Virtual, 26^th -30^th July 2021). UNILEON presentation: “Ovine mastitis: Does early live nutrition influence immunity response in later life?”.
• 2021 ASAS-CSAS-SSASAS Annual Meeting & Trade Show in Louisville (Kentucky, USA on 17^th July 2021). UofGUELPH presentation: “Single and Multiple-breed Genomic Predictions for Conformation Traits of Canadian Dairy Goats”.
• ADSA 2021 (Virtual, 11^th – 14^th July 2021). UofGUELPH presentation: “Accuracy of Single-step Genomic Breeding. Values for milk production traits for Canadian Alpine and Saanen Dairy Goats”.
• International Symposium on Sustainable Animal Production and Health – Current Status and Way Forward (Virtual, 28^th June – 2^nd July 2021). INIA-UY poster: “Breeding for Sheep parasite resistance in extensive production systems: from phenotype to genotype”.
• ISGC-IGGC 2021 (Virtual, 9^th -11^th June 2021). INRAE oral presentation: “A recessive stop-gain mutation in CCDC65 is associated with lamb mortality in French Lacaune dairy sheep”.
• Hbioinfo bridge 2021 (Virtual, 4^th June 2021). AUTH presentation: “Genome-wide association study of fertility traits in dairy sheep”.
• I Congreso Nacional de Caprinicultura (Virtual, 28^th May 2021). OVIGEN presentation: “Tecnologias reproductivas no melhoramento genético”.
• Online Seminar series in mathematical modeling of biological systems (Sammba), Institute Pasteur (France, 7^th May 2021). UEDIN presentation: “On the impact of vaccination and genetic selection on disease transmission in farm animals”.
• ICAR Virtual Conference 2021 (26^th -30^th April 2021). Presentations during the technical session n. 14 “Resilience and Efficiency in Small Ruminants”: 1) “SMARTER – Which novel traits to improve feed efficiency?” (INRAE); 2) “Feasibility of a genomic selection approach for gastro-intestinal nematodes resistance based on a female informative population in Sarda breed sheep” (AGRIS, SMARTER stakeholders); 3) “Selection tools to benefit from international cooperation in small ruminants: a comprehensive work package of the SMARTER project” (IDELE); 4) “A stakeholder platform to disseminate results from SMARTER project” (ICAR).
• 1er Encuentro de Agrogenómica (Virtual, 18^th March 2021). INIA-UY presentation: “Genómica y mejora genética animal: una década de I+D en Uruguay”.
• Red Rural Nacional Workshop on operational groups and innovative projects in Animal Breeding (Virtual, 11^th February 2021). UNILEON presentation: “Objectives and structure of SMARTER”. Article about SMARTER project from the conference (page 19).

2020

• 71^st EAAP Virtual Annual Meeting (1^st – 4^th December 2020). Presentations: 1)  “Potentials of using milk performance data as indicator for Targeted Selective Treatment in Lacaune dairy sheep in Switzerland” (FiBL & Qualitas AG); 2) “Actual and expected benefits from recent and on-going projects on the genetics of adaptation and resilience in the French dairy sheep and goats” (IDELE and al.); 3) “Evolution of genetic variance due to selection in Manech Tête Rousse dairy sheep” (INRAE); 4) “The correlation of substitution effects across populations and across generations” (INRAE); 5) “On the accuracy of estimating resilience” (UEDIN); 6) “Association between feed efficiency and methane emissions, performance and health in Merino sheep” (INIA-UY). Poster: “Benefits of GS for meat sheep breeding programs according to the available pedigree and the level of AI” (INRAE and IDELE).
• 6^th International Conference of Quantitative Genetics (Virtual, November 2020). INRAE presentation: “Detecting unrecorded environmental challenges and evaluating genetic determinism of resilience in lambs”.
• International Congress on the Breeding of Sheep and Goats, in Bonn (Germany, 15^th – 16^th October 2020). SRUC presentations: 1) “New opportunities for genomic selection in sheep and goats”: 2) “Diversity of sheep in the UK – do we have a problem or an opportunity?”.
• 48^th Virtual Congress of Argentine Society of Genetics de la SAG (24^th September 2020). INIA-UY presentation: “Genetic evaluations of sheep in Uruguay: 20 years of experience”.
• Finnish Sheep Conference, in Ostrobotnia (Finland, 18^th – 19^th September 2020). SRUC presentations: 1) “Breeding for disease resistance and using genomics in sheep breeding”; 2) “The UK Sheep Industry”.
• ADSA 2020 Virtual Conference (22^nd – 24^th June 2020). INRAE presentations: 1) “Can metafounders improve inbreeding estimation”; 2) “Bias of dairy sheep evaluations using BLUP and SSGBLUP with metafounders and unknown parent groups”.
• National Sheep Conference, in Killarney and Kilkenney (Ireland, 28^th & 30^th January 2020). TEAGASC presentation: “Commercial data – how it benefits out breeding indexes”. Moreover, a poster was presented.
• Sheep Ireland Conference, in Portlaoise (Ireland, 17^th January 2020). TEAGASC presentations: 1) “Making life easier at the busiest time: The potential to breed for greater lamb vigour and better mothering ability”; 2) “How can twins have completely different genetics?”; 3) “How many lambs are too many?”. Moreover, two posters were presented, one titled “Can ewe get more from DNA?”. SRUC three minutes thesis: “Development of international genetic evaluations in sheep”.

2019

• X Latin American and Caribbean Encounter Agricultural Biotechnology REDBIO Uruguay and the XII REDBIO Argentina Symposium, in Montevideo (Uruguay, 12^th – 15^th November 2019). INIA-UY presentation: “¿Cómo aumentar la resistencia genética a parásitos gastrointestinales en ovinos? La estrategia de Uruguay”.
• 70^th EAAP Annual Meeting, in Ghent (Belgium, 26^th– 30^th August 2019). INIA-UY, SRUC and INRAE presentations: 1) “Evaluation of udder morphology and milk production in prolific and meat ewes” (INIA-UY); 2) “Differences in growth between Corriedale sheep divergent lines for resistance to nematodes” (INIA-UY); 3) “Divergent genetic selection in meat sheep for an early behavioural reactivity”; 4) “Towards value-based marketing of UK lamb” (SRUC); 5) “Selection trace from runs of homozygosity in French dairy sheep” (INRAE).
• AGROEXPO2019, in Bogotà (Colombia, 11^th – 21^st July 2019). INIA-UY and SRUC presentation: “Selección por resistencia genética a parásitos”.
• 37^th International Society for Animal Genetics Conference (ISAG), in Lleida (Spain, 7^th -12^th July 2019). UDEIN presentation: “Effect of genotyping strategies in the sustained genetic gain across multiple generations of selection using ssGBLUP”.
• ICAR Conference 2019 in Prague (Czech Republic, 17^th -21^st June 2019). IDELE, UNILEON, SRUC, INRAE, UEDIN, TEAGASC, EAAP, S-ICAR presentation during a technical session: “SMARTER – A European project on selection of efficiency and resilience in small ruminants with strong ICAR commitment and implication” (pp. 169-175). IDELE presentation within working group on sheep, goat and camelids (18^th June 2019): “SMARTER: a European project on selection on efficiency and resilience in small ruminants with strong ICAR commitment and implication”.
• Workshop: Mejoramiento genético ganadero en Uruguay: perspectivas y desafíos in INIA Las Brujas (Uruguay, 13^th May 2019). INIA-UY presentation: “Estado Actual de las Evaluaciones Genéticas. Current Status of Genetic evaluations”.
• SVT Tagung 2019 (yearly conference of the Swiss Association of Animal Sciences) in Strickhof Lindau (Switzerland, 16^th April 2019). FiBL and Qualitas poster: “Small ruminants breeding for efficiency and resilience (SMARTER)”.
• BSAS 75th Annual Conference in Edinburgh (Scotland, UK 9^th -11^th April 2019). SRUC presentation: “Genetic parameters of faecal egg and oocyst counts, dag scores, live weight and immunological traits in Scottish Blackface sheep”.
• Kleinwiederkäuertagung 2019 in Bern (Switzerland, 7^th March 2019). FiBL and Qualitas presentation: “Zucht auf Parasitenresistenz bei kleinen Wiederkäuern”.
• Workshop: 1^st Expo Nacional Texel in Salto (Uruguay, 5^th February 2019). INIA-UY presentation: “Propuesta de investigación genética con la raza Texel“.
• PAG Conference in San Diego (USA, 12^th -16^th January 2019). INRAE presentation: “European project SMARTER 2018-2023”

2018

• SHAWG Conference in Staffordshire (United Kingdom, 21^st November 2018). Some flyers were presented by TEXELS.