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We used genome-wide SNP data from 18 local cattle breeds from six countries of the Alpine region to characterize population structure and identify genomic regions underlying positive selection. The geographically close breeds Evolèner, Eringer, Valdostana Pezzata Nera, and Valdostana Castana were found to differ from all other Alpine breeds. In addition, three breeds, Simmental, and Original Braunvieh from Switzerland and Pinzgauer from Austria built three separate clusters. Of the 18 breeds studied, the intra-alpine Swiss breed Evolèner had the highest average inbreeding based on runs of homozygosity (FROH) and the highest average genomic relationship within the breed. In contrast, Slovenian Cika cattle had the lowest average genomic inbreeding and the lowest average genomic relationship within the breed. We found selection signatures on chromosome 6 near known genes such as KIT and LCORL explaining variation in coat color and body size in cattle. The most prominent selection signatures were similar regardless of marker density and the breeds in the data set. In addition, using available high-density SNP data from 14 of the breeds we identified 47 genome regions as ROH islands. The proportion of homozygous animals was higher in all studied animals of local breeds than in Holstein and Brown Swiss cattle, the two most important commercial breeds in the Alpine region. We report ROH islands near genes related to thermoregulation, coat color, production, and stature. The results of this study serve as a basis for the search for causal variants underlying adaptation to the alpine environment and other specific characteristics selected during the evolution of local Alpine cattle breeds.

In this perspective analysis, we strive to answer the following question: how can we advance integrative biology research in the 21st century with lessons from animal science? At the University of Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty, Department of Animal Science, we share here our three lessons learned in the two decades from 2002 to 2022 that we believe could inform integrative biology, systems science, and animal science scholarship in other countries and geographies. Cultivating multiomics knowledge through a conceptual lens of integrative biology is crucial for life sciences research that can stand the test of diverse biological, clinical, and ecological contexts. Moreover, in an era of the current COVID-19 pandemic, animal nutrition and animal science, and the study of their interactions with human health (and vice versa) through integrative biology approaches hold enormous prospects and significance for systems medicine and ecosystem health.

While mitogenome mutations leading to pathological manifestations are rare, more than 200 such mutations have been described in humans. In contrast, pathogenic mitogenome mutations are rare in domestic animals and have not been described at all in cattle. In the small local Slovenian cattle breed Cika, we identified (next-generation sequencing) two cows with the T10432C mitogenome mutation in the ND4L gene, which corresponds to the human T10663C mutation known to cause Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON). Pedigree analysis revealed that the cows in which the mutation was identified belong to two different maternal lineages with 217 individual cows born between 1997 and 2020. The identified mutation and its maternal inheritance were confirmed by Sanger sequencing across multiple generations, whereas no single analysis revealed evidence of heteroplasmy. A closer clinical examination of one cow with the T10432C mutation revealed exophthalmos, whereas histopathological examination revealed retinal ablations, subretinal oedema, and haemorrhage. The results of these analyses confirm the presence of mitochondrial mutation T10432C with homoplasmic maternal inheritance as well as clinical and histopathological signs similar to LHON in humans. Live animals with the mutation could be used as a suitable animal model that can improve our understanding of the pathogenesis of LHON and other mitochondriopathies.

Goat’s daily diet is usually based on grazing, hay and/or feed supplements. Feed supplements are crucial in the diet of high productive goats to achieve their genetic potential and breeders must choose balanced feeding regime to produce large quantities of milk without affecting the technological quality of milk. In the present study, we evaluated the influence of two commercially available feed supplements on goat milk coagulation properties and rheological properties of yoghurts. Goats of the Slovenian Alpine breed (61) were fed with two feed supplements during the 3-year experiment. Feed supplement 1 (FS1) had higher proportions of barley and alfalfa, while feed supplement 2 (FS2) had added premix of minerals and vitamins and had higher proportions of wheat and sunflower meal. Consequently, FS1 had more crude fibres, which is the most probable reason for approximately 15 % higher firmness, consistency and cohesiveness (P

The ICAR Sheep, Goats and Camelids Working Group based on the interests of breeders’ organisations has decided to include wool performance recording in its guidelines. Therefore, the Working Group has established an Expert Advisory Group with the objectives to determine the traits of interest, their collection and genetic evaluation. In order to achieve these objectives, representatives of breeding organisations and other relevant institutions responsible for sheep recording were asked to fill out an on-line survey on sheep wool. The survey includes basic information such as contact details of the organisations and specific questions regarding the wool population. The latter includes information’s of the breeds involved, the size of the recorded and non-recorded population, the number of farms with wool records, information about traits recorded, phenotyping methods and protocols, genetic evaluation, and selection indices. Additional relevant data on management of animals (e.g., shearing) were also collected in the survey. Altogether, seventeen breeding organisations responded to the on-line survey. The number of animals included in the wool recording by country ranged from 200 to 2, 900, 000. As expected, the most common breed in wool recording was Merino, followed by Dohne Merino and local breeds. The traits involved were fleece weight, clean fleece weight or yield, fibre diameter, fibre diameter variation, staple length, staple strength, homogeneity of fleece, fibre density, fibre curvature, colour, visual appreciation, and additional traits. The most frequently recorded phenotypes were fibre diameter, staple length, fleece weight, fibre diameter variation, visual appreciation, and colour. The survey results provided useful insight into wool recording and will form the basis for guidelines development.

From the nineties, the working groups in charge of small ruminants in ICAR carried out surveys on topics related to milk recording and breeding programs in sheep and goats. These surveys were manual from 1988 to 2006, before being replaced by a yearly online questionnaire available to accept submission of data from ICAR countries having an activity in the field of dairy sheep and goats recording. This paper aims to analyse the evolution of milk recording in sheep and goats over the years, using the database (developed and maintained within the umbrella of ICAR Secretariat) updated by the responses from the on- line surveys. The database includes data on milk recording activities (by countries and by breeds), milk recording designs, average milk yield per lactation, recording devices, breeding schemes and selection criteria, and molecular information in sheep and goats. The valorisation of the on-line survey constitutes one of the main terms of reference of the sheep, goats and camelids working group and a synthesis is regularly presented at the working groups meeting. An overlook of the main evolutions of the milk recording activities in sheep and goats are presented, over the last 35 years. Ten to twelve countries filled out the questionnaire in each species. The number of animals in official milk recording reached 890, 000 ewes and 410, 000 does in 2021. In the large populations of Mediterranean countries, the impact of qualitative recording remains low, due to its cost. Use of simplified designs, which has been recommended by the working group has strongly increased over the years to exceed 90%.

Notarski zapis je listina o pravnem poslu, ki lahko pod določenimi pogoji pridobi lastnost neposredne izvršljivosti. Upnik lahko na njegovi podlagi predlaga prisilno izvršbo zoper dolžnika, če obveznosti noče prostovoljno izpolniti. En od pogojev, ki so potrebni, da terjatev iz notarskega zapisa pridobi lastnost neposredne izvršljivosti, je tudi soglasje zavezanca k neposredni izvršljivosti njegovih obveznosti. V večini primerov bo zavezanec podal t.i. splošno soglasje o neposredni izvršljivosti, s katerim soglaša, da so vse obveznosti, ki so nastale na podlagi pravnega posla v notarskem zapisu, neposredno izvršljive. Slednja izjava pa je lahko problematična pri pravnih poslih, ki vsebujejo več medsebojnih obveznosti (npr. najemna pogodba). V tem primeru je z vidika izvršilnega postopka ter pravnega varstva dolžnika bolje, da se vsako obveznost, ki naj postane neposredno izvršljiva posebej konkretizira. V praksi se stranke odločajo za sklenitev pravnega posla v obliki neposredno izvršljivega notarskega zapisa zaradi lažje izterljivosti obveznosti, saj že imajo izvršilni naslov in jim tega ni potrebno pridobiti v pravdnem postopku. Med pogostejše pravne posle, ki se skepajo v obliki neposredno izvršljivega notarskega zapisa, spadajo najemna pogodba, sporazum o zavarovanju denarne terjatve z ustanovitvijo hipoteke oz. ustanovitvijo zastavne pravice na poslovnem deležu. A notarial deed is a legal instrument that may, under certain conditions, become directly enforceable. A creditor may, on the basis of such deed, apply for compulsory enforcement against the debtor if the debtor refuses to fulfil the obligation voluntarily. One of the conditions necessary for a claim under a notarial deed to become directly enforceable is the consent of the debtor to the direct enforceability of its obligations. In most cases, the debtor will have given what is known as a general consent to direct enforceability, by which it agrees that all obligations created on the basis of the transaction in the notarial deed are directly enforceable. This declaration may, however, be problematic in transactions containing several mutual obligations (e.g. a rental agreement). In this case, it is better, from the point of view of the enforcement procedure and the legal protection of the debtor, to specify each obligation that is to be made directly enforceable. In practice, parties choose to conclude a transaction in the form of a directly enforceable notarial deed to facilitate the enforceability of the obligation, as they already possess the enforcement title and do not need to obtain it through litigation. Among the more common transactions concluded in the form of a directly enforceable notarial deed are rental agreements, agreements on securing a monetary claim by taking out a mortgage or by establishing a share pledge in a company.

Additional file 5: Figure S2. Phylogenetic neighbor net of global goat breeds from the two-step (excluding admixed and related animals) optimized dataset constructed with Nei’s DA distances (scale in the upper left corner) calculated with the 4-SNP blocks.

Additional file 4: Figure S1. Phylogenetic neighbor net of European goat breeds from the two-step (excluding admixed and related animals) optimized dataset constructed with Nei’s DA distances (scale in the upper left corner) calculated with the 4-SNP blocks.

Additional file 6: Figure S3. Graph of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) performed with SNP alleles of goat breeds from the Euro2Step dataset, where admixed and related animals were excluded. Besides first and second principal components (A), the third principal component was also analyzed (B).

Additional file 8: Figure S4. Left panels: normal PCA plots of 525 sheep (≤ 6 per breed) including the inbred EFB, KCH, VBS. Right panels: supervised PCA of 546 sheep, including three mouflon populations, in which EFB, KCH and VBS as well as the mouflons have been excluded for calculation of the principal components (svPC1, svPC2 and svPC3).

Additional file 5: Figure S1. Inverse linear relationship of observed heterozygosity and the total ROH coverage FROH, showing relatively low heterozygosity values for AMF, SMF and fat-tailed sheep.

Additional file 11: Figure S7. Supervised PCA of 546 animals in which the PC (svPC1, svPC2) were calculated based on the indicated fat-tailed, Nordic and Spanish sheep.

Additional file 9: Figure S5. Supervised PCA of 546 animals as in Fig. 2b, showing svPC1 vs. svPC3 averaged per breed.

Additional file 7: Figure S3. FineStructure clustering of eastern and southeastern European sheep breeds. The color of each bin in the matrix indicates the number of “genomic chunks” copied from a donor (columns) to a recipient individual (rows).

Additional file 6: Figure S2. Neighbour-joining tree visualizing the allele-sharing distances of the Balkan sheep (see Fig. 1) or (see Additional file 1: Table S1) for the breed codes). Breeds that are dispersed over different branches of the tree are indicated by colored lines.

The domestication of wild Aurochs (Bos primigenius) is among the greatest achievements of mankind that had immense impact on the development of human society. Our understanding of the transformation from Aurochs to modern breeds is still not resolved as neither of the two hypotheses, single v. multiple origin domestication, have not been decisively rejected. To improve our understanding of cattle domestication we have sequenced the complete mitogenome of 196 individuals using NGS. Our sample encompassed 50 ‘new’ breeds and covered a large number of Central and South East European cattle breeds thus fulfilling the missing gap on the route from the Fertile Crescent to the Western Europe. We have performed the comprehensive complete mitogenome phylogenetic analyses, comprising 498 bovine samples (300 from the GenBank) from more than 100 cattle breeds. With the exception of very rare haplogroups (C, E, R, I and T7), mitogenomes sequenced here were classified within all known haplogroups (T1’2’3, T1, ..., T5 and T6), including even haplotypes assigned to the haplogroup P and Q. Up to now, haplogroup P was found only in the ancient West European Aurochs samples and the one sample from the modern Korean cattle. The existence of the haplogroup P (‘Aurochs’) was confirmed on the original sample and its four female relatives, sampled additionally. This is a direct evidence of the continuity and presence of Aurochs genes in modern breeds that further increases the possibility of multiple origin of cattle domestication, while we were not able to exclude post-domestication admixture. The haplogroup Q, here found in three individuals with two unique haplotypes, has diverged from the ‘macro-haplogroup T’ more than 35 thousand years ago and also indicates the presence of Aurochs genes in modern breeds. We have observed a large, newly arisen, divergence within ‘macro-haplogroup T’, with the new, rather deeply, rooted branches (non-classified haplogrups) prompting for the urgent reclassification of the cattle mitogenomic systematics.

The objective of the study was to estimate factors affecting mare's milk composition with the emphasis on the effect of different milk sampling. Milk samples, belonged to indigenous breed of the Slovenian draft horse (SDH), were collected on the farm registered for mare's milk production. Milk samples were collected during 8 test days (TD) from 3 routinely machine milked SDH mares in the age of 6 - 7 years with the estimated body weight from 600 to 656 kg in the 49 to 241 days of lactation. Two types (A and B) of samples were taken during 3 consecutive milking on the each TD. The A samples represented first jets of the milk while the B samples represented milk from each single consecutive milking per TD. The average milk yield per milking was 1.55 l. The average contents for B samples were: fat content (FC) 1.04%, protein content (PC) 1.75%, lactose content (LC) 6.74%, urea content (UC) 30.87 mg/dl, and somatic cell count (SCC) 3.02 x 10³/ml. The analysis of variance showed that sample significantly affected FC, UC, and SCC ; mare significantly affected MY, FC, PC, UC, and SCC ; stage of lactation affected MY, PC, LC, UC, and SCC ; and consecutive milking affected FC and PC. From the perspective of growing interest for mare's milk production, the safety and quality of mare's milk should be provided. This could be fulfilled by determination of the guidelines for breeders and standards for mare's milk recording in the near future.

The geographical patterns of genetic variation in domestic species are the outcome of spatially explicit demographic events. Technological advances have made the obtaining of spatial information easier and different techniques have been developed to analyse spatial patterns of genetic variation. Relatively weak geographic trends found in sheep populations suggested the use of more powerful approaches, such as spatial principle component analysis. The aim of the study was to assess if application of spatial approach could reveal structures and patterns of genetic variation in indigenous Eastern Adriatic sheep breeds and contribute to our current knowledge about their genetic differentiation. We found south-east to north-west cline as the global structure using spatial principal component analysis, which outperformed the principal component analysis in this study and complemented understanding of variability of the investigated breeds reported in other multivariate and model-based clustering methods applied on this microsatellite data in previous research. Kernel density estimation suggested the Lika pramenka sheep belongs to a separate patch, not recognized in the spatial effects of the spatial principal component analysis. This potential structure should be further investigated.

Diplomska naloga, v kateri predstavljamo komunikacijske kanale znotraj izbranega podjetja in zadovoljstvo zaposlenih v dotičnem podjetju, je sestavljena iz teoretičnega in empiričnega dela. Prvi, teoretični del, je razdeljen na 4 poglavja. V prvem delu teoretičnega dela najprej opredelimo komunikacijo, v drugem predstavimo komunikacijske kanale, tretji del pa je posvečen internemu komuniciranju. Zadnji del teoretičnega dela je predstavitev izbrane organizacije – Mercator d.d. Hipermarket Nova Gorica mesto (v nadaljevanju Mercator PE Nova Gorica). Drugi del diplomske naloge, empirični del, predstavlja 6. poglavje te naloge, v katerem analiziramo podatke, pridobljene z anketnim vprašalnikom, ki smo ga razdelili med zaposlene v izbranem podjetju. V analizi odgovorov predstavljamo tudi morebitne predloge za izboljšavo in spremembe, ki bi v podjetju pripomogle k boljšemu vzdušju in počutju zaposlenih, posledično pa bi seveda vplivale na boljše in kvalitetnejše opravljeno delo. Glavne naloge diplomskega dela so: ugotoviti, kateri so dejavniki uspešnega komuniciranja v preučevani organizaciji ugotoviti, kaj zaposlene te organizacije motivira ugotoviti, kako odnos v timu vpliva na zaposlene, kako se rešujejo nastali konflikti. Ko smo preučevali anketne vprašalnike, smo ugotovili, da največ informacij zaposleni v Mercator PE Nova Gorica dobijo na sestankih, od vodji in sodelavcev, še pomembnejši pa je podatek, da so anketiranci v veliki večini pritrdili, da so sestanki uspešni, torej je interna komunikacija v PE zelo pomemben in uspešen dejavnik, ki pripomore k uspešnemu poslovanju enote. Naslednja točka, ki smo jo vzeli pod drobnogled, so konflikti in reševanje le-teh. Zaposleni, ki so sodelovali v anketi, pravijo, da do konfliktov pride, bodisi zaradi nejasnih navodil in informacij bodisi zaradi preobremenjenosti z delom in utrujenosti. Dejavniki so različni, vendar je spodbudno, da velika večina sodelujočih v anketi meni, da so občasni konflikti lahko konstruktivni in stimulativni. The thesis, in which I present channels of communication within a selected company and the satisfaction of the employees in the aforementioned company, consists of a theoretical and empirical part. The theoretical part consists of 4 parts. Firstly, I define communication, afterwards I introduce its channels. In the third part I describe internal communication and, in the last part of the theoretical section, I present the company of my choice- Mercator d.d. Hipermarket Nova Gorica mesto ( below Mercator PE Nova Gorica). In the empirical part of the thesis, I conducted a survey questionnaire, with which I analysed employee satisfaction in the workplace and the flow of information. Once the results were final, I presented my findings and conclusions and also recommended possible improvements. The aim of the thesis is to find out: what are the factors for successful communication in the studied organisation, what motivates employees, how team attitude affects the employees, how conflicts are resolved. While analysing the questionnaire results, I found out that the employees get the majority of their information from meetings, from their supervisors, and fellow employees. Even more importantly, the majority agreed that their meetings are useful and successful, therefore proving internal communication is of key importance, for a smooth running company. The next thing I examined were conflicts and how to resolve them. Employees confirmed there are conflicts, usually because of unclear instructions, or because of overworking and exhaustion. The factors vary, but it is encouraging, that most of the participants in the questionnaire think occasional conflicts can be constructive and helpful.

The aim of the study was to compare type traits of Istrian Pramenka in Slovenia with Istrian Sheep in Croatia. Altogether, 102 ewes of Istrian Pramenka in Slovenia were measured, where 64 of them were adult. Type traits were analysed by the means procedure of the SAS/STAT software. Results shown that adult ewes of Istrian Pramenka in Slovenia achieved lower body weight and wither height compared to ewes of Istrian Sheep from Croatia. On the other hand, Slovenian Istrian Pramenka ewes had higher body lenght, chest depth and chest width compared to Croatian Istrian Sheep ewes. Chest girth and cannon bone circumference were lower in Slovenian Istrian Pramenka compared to Croatian Istrian sheep. The majority of Slovenian Istrian Pramenka ewes had white wool colour with black dots. Large difference in the percentage of completely white wool ewes in Slovenian Ostrian Pramenka compared to Ceoatian Istrian Sheep was found.