Marija Spehar

My research at the Highlander Lab is about genomic and temporal analysis of genetic covariance and correlation between dairy and beef traits in the dual-purpose Fleckvieh cattle breed. One of the practical problems in breeding programs is selection on multiple traits with variable genetic correlations between traits where the limitation is posed by unfavourable genetic correlations limiting the space for improvement in the future. Due to polygenic architecture for economically important traits, there can be genomic regions with favourable, unfavourable, and no genetic correlations that all jointly result in a global genetic correlation between traits.

The main goals were:

• Estimate overall genetic parameters (covariances and correlations) between the dairy and beef traits at the whole-genome level in the dual-purpose Fleckvieh population.
• Perform temporal analysis by estimating temporal changes in genetic covariances and correlations.
• Partition covariances and correlations between dairy and beef traits by chromosome, chromosome regions and individual loci.

I received my graduate degree from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Agriculture and my MSc and PhD degree from the University of Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty. Currently, I am working at the Croatian Agency for Agriculture and Food on genetic and genomic evaluation of cattle, small ruminants and pigs. I am also involved in Applied Research Projects on genomic characterization, preservation and optimum contribution selection of Croatian dairy sheep. In particular, I am developing a single-step GBLUP model for genomic evaluation of dairy traits.

I am specifically interested in:

Programming language and software:

A large spectrum of interests and activities especially sport:

• Hiking
• Running
• Basketball