Outreach, society, policy

iGENDEC: A web-based decision support platform for delivering economic selection index theory to industry and students

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Abstract

Economic selection indexes are the preferred method of practicing multiple trait selection. However, the process is cumbersome for those not skilled in the discipline of animal breeding and genetics and who lack the necessary computational skills. Moreover, the consequences of choices relative to economic parameters, population (herd) means, or breeding system are often opaque to the end user of an index. Although the majority of U.S. beef breed associations that have genetic evaluations provide indexes, their utilization of these tools has been less than is desired. IGENDEC, a web-based platform underpinned by a stochastic simulation, was written in the GO programming language, and was developed to enable the construction of user-specific economic selection indexes. The web-based software platform enables the construction of economic selection indexes based on user defined breed choice, breeding system (beef x beef, beef x dairy, purebred, crossbred), economic parameters, population (herd) phenotypic means, and length of the planning horizon. The resulting output includes marginal economic values (MEV) and graphical representation of relative emphasis (RE) for traits. Consequently, the user can see the direct consequences to index weights and the relative impact to breeding objectives through the web-based platform. This platform has been effectively used to create selection indices for 4 U.S. beef breed associations as well as larger scale seedstock producers. Importantly it also serves as a hands-on teaching tool for both beef cattle producers and students at the undergraduate and graduate level. To date, iGENDEC has been utilized in the classroom at 5 U.S. universities and by extension personnel in over 10 U.S. states. Common scenarios used for teaching and extension purposes include illustrating the economic importance of calving ease as death loss due to dystocia in the population (herd) changes and the impact of changing current levels of carcass performance (i.e., hot carcass weight and marbling score) when pricing of such traits is not linearly related with changes in the trait. The ability to illustrate the impact of planning horizon, or the length of time to consider the economic impact of a selection decision, has proven useful in demonstrating the concept of discounted expression rates for maternally oriented traits (i.e., stayability). The iGENDEC platform, offered through the Beef Improvement Federation, has enabled users of differing skill levels to experience index construction and facilitated education to multiple audiences around their design.

Keywords: 2026

How to Cite:

Spangler, M., Golden, B., Newman, S., Bullock, D. & Weaber, R., (2026) “iGENDEC: A web-based decision support platform for delivering economic selection index theory to industry and students”, World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production Digital Archive 2026(1): 2287391. doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/wcgalp.24287

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