Biodiversity and genetics of beef quality, a review

Figures & data

Table 1. Importance of genetic variability (Biodiversity) and genetic improvement (Genetics) for the phenotypic variability of the major traits affecting the product, process and overall quality of beef meat.

Meat quality trait	Related to:	Importance of:
		Biodiversity	Genetics
Product quality:
Chemical composition	Degree and distribution of marbling, leanness	^*****	***
Histological traits	Muscle fibre type, adipocytes	^****	*
Texture	Tenderness, connective tissue, enzymes	***	**
Colour	Dark or pale meat, haem iron,	**	**
Purge and cooking losses	Exudative meats, DFD	**	*
Ageing, shelf life	Fat oxidation, microbial alteration	**	*
Sensory properties	Smell, taste, juiciness, etc.	***	**
Volatile compounds	VOCs, smell	??	*
Hygiene	Safe or harmful meat	–	–
Human health claims	Favourable or unfavourable nutrients	^****	**
Process quality:
Animal welfare	Dehorning, castration, dystocia, etc.	**	***
Antibiotic free	Disease resistance and prevention	**	*
GMO free	Crop cultivars and origins	–	–
Carbon neutrality	Enteric methane, slurry management	*	**
Environmental impact	GHG, land use, water, pollutants, etc.	**	*
Biodiversity friendly	Rare breeds, no art. insemination	^*****	**
Overall quality:
Designation of origin	PDO, PGI, Slow-Food praesidia, etc.	^****	–
Farming system	Organic label, mountain product, etc.	***	**
Ecosystem services	Landscape, fires and social issues	***	*
Religious beliefs	Food taboos, halal, kosher, etc.	–	–
Cultural features^a	Animal rights advocates, veganism and vegetarianism	–	**
Gastronomic heritage	Typical products and recipes	***	*

^aHeritable in humans (Wesseldijk et al. 2023).

*, **, ***, ****, *****: asterisks represent a subjective scoring of the importance of Biodiversity and Genetics on the meat quality traits; ??: not known; DFD: dark, firm, dry meat; VOC: volatile organic compounds; GMO: genetically modified organism; GHG: greenhouse gases; PDO: protected designation of origin; PGI: protected geographical indication.

Figure 1. Contribution of different species to the worldwide production of meat (FAO 2020).

Figure 2. Number of breed entries of mammals and birds reared for food production worldwide retrieved from the FAO’s Domestic Animal Diversity Information System.

Figure 3. Median effective population sizes (Ne) of cattle breeds calculated on the basis of genealogical relationships (DF, 130 breeds) and the genomic linkage disequilibrium (LD, 60 breeds) according to census size (Nc) (adapted from Hall’s (2016) data).

Figure 4. Trends in the average genomic inbreeding coefficients of Holstein bulls and cows according to their year of birth (simplified from Guinan et al. (2023)).

Figure 5. Distribution of heritability estimates of Warner-Bratzler shear force (in blue, 44 studies) and of tenderness scores (in red, 19 studies) of beef meat (data taken from Burrow et al. (2001) review).

Table 2. Summary of the descriptive statistics and heritability estimates of beef quality traits obtained from studies carried out in the last 20 years (22 studies^a, 31 populations and 161,574 head).

	Estimates N	Descriptive statistics:			Heritability:
		Median	Mean	SD	Median	Mean	SD
Heads	31	1254	5984	15,267	–	–	–
Raw meat samples
Fatness traits:
IMF, %	8	1.88	2.04	1.25	0.25	0.30	0.18
Marbling score	12	^b	^b	^b	0.30	0.31	0.19
Colour traits:
L*	15	36.73	37.04	4.23	0.18	0.21	0.10
a*	10	22.64	20.22	5.48	0.13	0.19	0.22
b*	10	11.45	11.85	2.78	0.09	0.09	0.04
C*	4	22.14	22.05	6.74	0.15	0.12	0.06
H*	4	37.96	34.27	11.35	0.31	0.35	0.27
Cooked meat samples
Cooking loss, %	11	21.78	21.18	4.92	0.08	0.11	0.07
Texture traits:
WBsf, N/cm^b	24	^b	^b	^b	0.24	0.23	0.12
Tenderness score	9	^b	^b	^b	0.17	0.21	0.14

^aAllais et al. (2014); Hornyák et al. (2008); Zwambag et al. (2013); Boukha et al. (2007, 2011); Savoia et al. (2019); Cecchi et al. (2004); Crews et al. (2004); Do et al. (2016); Gill et al. (2010); Johnston et al. (2003); Minick et al. (2004); Wolcott et al. (2009); Berry et al. (2021); Magalhães et al. (2019); Bedhane et al. (2019); Londoño-Gil et al. (2022); Feitosa et al. (2017); Grigoletto et al. (2020); de Nadai Bonin et al. (2021); Bhuiyan et al. (2017); (Magalhães et al. 2019).

^bData not reported due to heterogeneity in the technical procedures adopted in different studies.

IMF: intramuscular fat content; WBsf: Warner-Bratzler shear force; SD: standard deviation.

Figure 6. Schema of approaches to improve meat quality (MQ) through: direct genetic selection from reference meat quality phenotypes at the nucleus level (red pathway); indirect genetic selection from NIRS MQ predictions (blue pathway); direct genetic selection of NIRS absorbances and genetic prediction of MQ (green pathway); indirect genomic selection through SNP MQ predictions (orange pathway) and direct genomic selection (brown pathway) (modified from Bittante, Savoia et al. (2021)).

Figure 7. Genetic (r_a, dark colours) and residual (r_e, light colours) correlations between reference ‘wet chemistry’ beef quality traits and their predictions obtained with a transportable visible-near infrared (Vis-NIRS, in blue) or a very small portable near-infrared (Micro-NIRS, in green) spectrometer (data taken from Savoia et al. 2021). (L* = lightness; a* = redness index; b* = yellowness index; C* = chroma; H* = hue; PL = beef purge loss; CL = beef cooking loss; WBSF = Warner-Bratzler shear force of cooked meat).

Figure 8. Heritability estimates of beef quality traits measured using reference ‘wet chemistry’ methods (dark red) and their predictions obtained with a transportable visible-near infra-red (Vis-NIRS, in blue) or a very small portable near infrared (Micro-NIRS, in green) spectrometer (data taken from Savoia et al. (2021)). (L* = lightness; a* = redness index; b* = yellowness index; C* = chroma; H* = hue; PL = beef purge loss; CL = beef cooking loss; WBSF = Warner-Bratzler shear force of cooked meat).

Table 3. Summary of the major differences in F2 crossbred steers and heifers obtained from F1 bulls and dams (heterozygotes mh/+) sired by Piemontese bulls (homozygotes mh/mh) according to the number of mutated mh alleles inherited from the Piemontese grandsires.

	Genotype of F2 at MSTN locus:			mh/mh vs. +/+	mh/+ vs. (mh/mh + +/+)/2
	+/+	mh/+	mh/mh
Birth weight, kg	35.7	37.0	40.1	***	–
Carcase weight, kg	269	278	291	***	–
Dressing, %	57.9	59.7	63.2	***	***
Longissimus dorsi area, cm^2	74.3	86.4	109.0	***	***
Marbling score	6.0	5.4	4.0	***	***
Fat depth, mm	6.3	5.6	2.6	***	**
Shear test, kg	4.2	4.1	4.0	–	–
Gain efficiency, g/Mcal	43.7	42.5	42.4	–	–
Primal cut efficiency, g/Mcal	12.6	13.2	15.2	***	–

Data summarised and adapted from Short et al. (2002).

**p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

Figure 9. Number of new publications per year related to genomic research on beef quality.

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Data availability statement

The data presented in this article are freely available being obtained from cited published articles.