Establishing the ELIXIR Domestic Animals Genome and Phenome Community

Abstract

The well-being of farmed and companion animals is increasingly recognised as integral to sustainable agroecosystems, companionship, and the One Health approach, which emphasises the interconnected health of people, animals, and the environment. The ELIXIR Domestic Animals Genome and Phenome (DAGP) Community supports genome-to-phenome analyses for farmed and companion animal species. Its aim is to coordinate, discuss, and explore the potential of data technology solutions to address key issues in animal welfare, behaviour, health, infectious diseases, metabolism, nutritional efficiency, and the preservation of genetic diversity and the environment. Through consolidating efforts to develop data standards, coordination, workflows, and visualisation, it will enhance the science underpinning rapidly growing fields in domestic animal genomics, including genome-enabled breeding, population genomics, pangenome analysis, functional genomics, genome editing, paleogenomics, phenotyping, and bio-banking. These standards will adhere to the FAIR data principles and leverage established ontologies to promote best practices in data coordination and archiving.

This white paper, prepared by the ELIXIR DAGP Focus Group, summarises the current data infrastructure, resources, and tools available for domestic animal genomics and phenomics, and presents community-led plans and priorities to be implemented to meet the requirements of ELIXIR services and the animal science community. We describe how ELIXIR services can be applied in the domestic animal genomics and phenomics fields, and how we can connect projects and infrastructures that are active in the animal sciences domain. We also discuss three key priority areas: i) expanding the FAANG Data Portal for phenotype data with ELIXIR Data Platforms; ii) supporting submissions of new data types across ELIXIR Core Data Resources , including proprietary data from industry partners; and iii) strengthening connections to existing ELIXIR Communities and international consortia. This article provides a set of priorities for a Domestic Animals Genome and Phenome Community in ELIXIR and outlines the next steps to engage across stakeholders and to consolidate data for domestic animal science in Europe.