The EVA-tool

The software program EVA has been developed by NordGen to monitor inbreeding risks and share breeding recommendations for small populations of farm animals. The program is available for free download for Windows, Linux and Mac. Read more about the program and its importance below.

Among several of our Nordic farm animal breeds, there are so few individuals left that we risk both inbreeding and loss of valuable genetic diversity, if we’re not careful when breeding new animals. Modern breeding programs that use advanced statistical and molecular genetic methods and technologies give good results in genetic traits, but risk increasing inbreeding problems. This has led to an increase in the need for tools that monitor and control the risk of inbreeding in a population.

NordGen has therefore developed the EVA software program that monitors inbreeding risks and gives breeding recommendations. With an optimal balance of inbreeding and genetic advancement, EVA gives you the opportunity to make long-term and sustainable breeding decisions, no matter how large the population is and how it is structured. EVA has been used and tested successfully in both commercial and threatened populations in the Nordic and Baltic countries.

EVA is a tool to:

  • Describe population history in relation to:
    1. individual inbred coefficients and completeness in the pedigree
    2. average degree of inbreeding, kinship, pedigree incompleteness and generational equivalents per generation
    3. genetic contributions from
      • all founder individuals
      • most contributing ancestors
      • individual to individual or group of individuals.
  • Optimize genetic contributions
    1. EVA optimizes the linear function of breeding value and average additive genetic relationship
    2. Assuming optimal contributions, individuals can be mated either temporarily or to minimize inbreeding in the offspring.

To use EVA, you need reliable and consistent pedigree information. In most cases, a standard desktop computer has sufficient capacity to run EVA, with the exception of very large populations.

EVA is available for free for Windows, Linux and Mac and can be downloaded below:

Download EVA for Windows
Download EVA for MAC
Download EVA for Linux

Manual

To quickly get started with the EVA-tool, please read the manual below.

EVA-manual

Quote EVA in scientific articles:

Berg P., Nielsen J. and Sørensen M.K. 2006. EVA: Realized and predicted optimal genetic contributions. CD communication 27-09, 2pp. WCGALP, 2006, s.246.