About the Authors

Mathew D. Littlejohn

mlittlejohn@lic.co.nz

Affiliation Research & Development, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, New Zealand

Kathryn Tiplady

Affiliation Research & Development, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, New Zealand

Thomas Lopdell

Affiliation Research & Development, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, New Zealand

Tania A. Law

Affiliation School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Andrew Scott

Affiliation Research & Development, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, New Zealand

Chad Harland

Affiliation Research & Development, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, New Zealand

Ric Sherlock

Affiliation Research & Development, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, New Zealand

Kristen Henty

Affiliations Research & Development, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, New Zealand, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Vlad Obolonkin

Affiliation Research & Development, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, New Zealand

Klaus Lehnert

Affiliations Research & Development, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, New Zealand, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Alistair MacGibbon

Affiliation Nutrition and Bioactives, Fonterra Research Centre, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Richard J. Spelman

Affiliation Research & Development, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, New Zealand

Stephen R. Davis

Affiliation Research & Development, Livestock Improvement Corporation, Hamilton, New Zealand

Russell G. Snell

Affiliation School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Competing Interests

Mathew D Littlejohn, Kathryn Tiplady, Thomas Lopdell, Andrew Scott, Chad Harland, Ric Sherlock, Vlad Obolonkin, Richard J Spelman and Stephen R Davis are employees of Livestock Improvement Corporation, a commercial provider of bovine germplasm. Alistair MacGibbon is an employee of Fonterra, a bovine dairy co-operative. The authors declare that there are no patents or marketed products to declare, and no other potentially competing interests exist. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MDL RGS RJS SRD. Performed the experiments: MDL KT TL TAL AS CH RS KH VO KL AM SRD. Analyzed the data: MDL KT TL TAL CH RS KH VO KL AM SRD. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KT TL CH VO KL. Wrote the paper: MDL KT TL SRD. Critically assessed and revised the manuscript: MDL KT TL TAL AS CH RS KH VO KL AM RJS SRD RGS.