Kimberly Vonnahme, NDSU associate professor of animal sciences, and Larry Reynolds, University Distinguished Professor of animal sciences, recently helped organize the Triennial Symposium on Animal Reproduction, which is scheduled for July 12 during the annual meeting of the American Society of Animal Science in Orlando, Florida.
The symposium has been held since 1953 and is an important venue for presenting the latest findings related to reproduction in farm animals.
Vonnahme chaired the Organizing Committee and Reynolds was a committee member.
Reynolds will give the introduction and summary talks at the symposium. In addition to Reynolds, there will be six speakers from throughout the U.S. and one presenter from the United Kingdom. The symposium also will include the presentation of the L.E. Casida Award for excellence in graduate education, which has been awarded at each symposium since 1985.
“This symposium will highlight the profound effects of the pre- and post-natal environment on reproduction in farm animals as adults, and even across generations,” said Vonnahme. “If we can understand the basis of those effects, we may be able to improve reproductive performance.”
The symposium will emphasize state-of-the-art information on topics related to "Developmental Programming of Fertility.” Developmental programming involves such topics as poor maternal nutrition that affects development of the fetus and infant and has long-term effects on those individuals as adults. Presentations will discuss the effects of heifer development systems on lifetime productivity, effects of prenatal and immediate postnatal nutrition on reproductive characteristics in bulls, nutritional programming of reproductive function in heifers, environmental contaminants and developmental programming of reproduction and reproductive behavior in livestock and vertebrate models.
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