Artificial Insemination GCSE Module 14 Biotechnology Lesson 11

Artificial Insemination GCSE Module 14 Biotechnology Lesson 11 -13 Ouch!

Lesson objectives: • You will understand how cattle semen is collected from genetically suitable bulls and introduced into suitable cows. • You will understand the advantages of artificial insemination over natural breeding.

Artificial insemination: very simply means taking sperm from the best male animal and putting into the best female animal. It is used extensively in modern farming to produce best diary and beef cattle and in the breeding of race horses.

Artificial insemination: • Semen is collected from a prize bull. It is then diluted, frozen and stored. • It can then be inserted directly into a fertile cow or super-ovulation + embryo transfer can be used: • This technique involves the prize cow being given hormones to increase ovulation. Eggs are collected. • . An egg from the prize cow is fertilised in vitro by sperm from a prize bull. • An embryo is implanted into another cow. • Surrogate cow then gives birth to calf.

Advantages and disadvantages: • Use of proven stock quality • Frozen semen can be transported globally and stored for many years • Cost effective an straw of semen is £ 15 while the cost of a Holstein bull is around £ 10, 000. A bull is expensive to rear, relatively unproductive, vulnerable to disease or accident and may be infertile. • Flexibility: high yield dairy cows can be crossed with dairy bull semen to create more higher yield cows.

Safety: bulls are aggressive Main disadvantage is that the same alleles keep appearing in the population so there is a loss of diversity in the gene pool (many genes are lost). So a disease could wipe out an entire population if resistant alleles have been lost.

Activities: 1. Produce a set of annotated diagrams explaining how semen is collected, stored and finally inserted into a cow during artificial insemination. 2. List the advantages of artificial selection over natural breeding. Use the information provided in the previous slides as a starting point and then supplement from your own research. Then use MSN Messenger to discuss your list with a partner in the class. Bring your list to the next lesson for display.

Dating game: Use the following website: sire selector to mate an imaginary herd of ten milk cows with the semen from a bull or bulls of your choice. Produce a family tree of the crosses and provide information on projected milk yield for the likely calves produced. You have only a limited budget of £ 150 to spend and must produce the new herd with the highest projected milk yield possible. Remember: a cow will usually only produce 1 calf at a time and it can be either male or female (1: 1 ratio). Lay out your family tree with projected milk yields on an Excel spreadsheet for display next lesson.

Plenary: Copy and answer these questions: 1. What would you do as a farmer if a calf when fully grown into a cow failed to give the projected milk yield? 2. What would happen to the male calves produced during the crossings (remember 1: 1 ratio of males to females would occur)? 3. What advantages does artificial insemination have over a natural breeding programme for the farmer? 4. How could super-ovulation + embryo transfer further improve the selection of your milk herd?