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2.2 Risk from Maladapted Livestock
In addition to the unpredictability of the environment, the genetics of an animal can
influence risk by affecting the capacity of the animal to cope with, and adapt to, the
environment and its variability. The need to preserve biodiversity of livestock that
are adapted to dryland has been recognised over the last decade (Scherf et al. 2008 ;
Hoffmann 2011 ). The genetic make-up of productive livestock will favour appropri-
ate levels of production, to drive profitability of the business, and also an ability to
adapt to local conditions, including feed and water availability (Revell 2016 ), cli-
mate and diseases (Hoffmann 2011 ). However, as Provenza ( 2008 ) pointed out,
genotypes are often selected for high levels of production and therefore high nutri-
tional demand, but that demand is rarely matched by the feed resources available in
a dryland landscape. Moreover, exotic target phenotypes are often tested and mea-
sured with the animals in confinement, a completely inappropriate environment
when the progeny will be raised in dry rangeland (Provenza 2008 ). Almost inevita-
bly, the outcomes from these mismatches are poor animal performance and a major
Fig. 1 Illustration of the unpredictability and variability of annual rainfall (bold solid line), and
rainfall in the Australian spring (March to May; thin solid line) and summer (June to August;
dashed line) in central Queensland (Isisford Post Office: −24.26°S, 144.44°E, 203 m) and in south-
west Western Australian (Pingelly: -32.53°S, 117.08°E, 297 m) from 1891 to 2015. The grey box
shows the limits of the semi-arid dryland zone as defined by UNESCO (1977). Data from
Australian Bureau of Meteorology (http://www.bom.gov.au)
D. Blache et al.