Successful OCS workshop at Hafjell

The OCS workshop arranged by NordGen 6th-10th of June at Hafjell, Norway was a success. To maximize the learning experience of all participants, the workshop was divided into two parts: introductory and advanced.

“Part I – Introductory”

included lectures on basic theory of optimal contribution selection (OCS) with discrete generations, computational constraints, and inbreeding and effective population size. Additionally, participants worked individually with given exercises, learned to run OCS software and to interpret the results. Solutions were discussed and presented by the participants.

“Part II – Advanced”

included lectures on advanced theory of OCS with overlapping generations. This part of the course concentrated on intensive group work on the definition of implementation plans for OCS and identifying potential challenges in real-life breeding and conservation programs. Participants learned in-depth interpretation of OCS results and practiced combined interpretation of descriptive statistics of a population and optimal genetic contributions. Solutions were discussed and presented by the participants. Lectures and exercises are available at the

workshop homepages

. Thank you for all participants!