Preface Climate change is one of the important challenges facing the world today. It is no more an environmental concern but emerged as the biggest developmental challenge for animal-agriculture system. The consequences of climate change manifest themselves in multiple ways, including increased variability and intensity of extreme weather events leading to unpredicted production. The search for solutions to mitigate climate change and to adapt to its consequences is urgent need of the hour. Periodic evaluation of different approaches adopted to mitigate the adverse impact of climate changes on agriculture and allied sectors needs scientific validations to provide inputs to policy makers to design and develop programmes suitable for livestock production system. Climate change affects livestock production system and thereby affecting food security of the country. Present climate variability is negatively impacting livestock production due to untimely unset of diseases, lack of availability of water, deforestation, shrinkage of pasture land, etc. Climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies are critical to protect livestock production and sustainable husbandry practices. Diversification of livestock-agriculture practices using different crop varieties and integrating mixed crop livestock system may be one of the promising adaptation measures. There is growing interest among the researchers, policy makers and other stake holders in understanding the interactions of climate change and livestock production. Very limited researches regarding the impacts of climate change on livestock production is available. The present book on “Impact of Climate Change on Livestock Health and Production” contains 30 chapters contributed by the learned authors of national and international repute covering on various latest aspects involving diversification of livestock and crops, integration of livestock systems with forestry and crop production, drought and heat wave tolerant varieties, strategies for reduction of Green House Gases emission from ruminants, application of GIS and remote sensing technologies, breeds with inherent genetic capabilities to adapt to climate change. etc. This book also emphasises the climate change adaptation, mitigation practices, and policy frameworks for promotion of sustainable livestock and poultry production. Information given in the book is based on knowledge and understanding of the subjects of various experts. However, the editors are not responsible for any typographical errors or other mistakes in the book. The editors greatly acknowledge the contributions made by the authors of the relevant chapters. The contributors of the concerned chapters are solely responsible for the originality of their contents. The editors are highly thankful to Dr. R.K Mahapatra, Former Chief Librarian, Central Library, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology Bhubaneswar for his constant support and guidance for publication of the book. We are immensely grateful and indebted to Prof. Pawan Kumar Agrawal Hon’ble Vice-Chancellor, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology Bhubaneswar for his constant inspiration, unflinching encouragement precious guidance and moral support for preparation of this book.

Introduction According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climate change refers to the long-term changes (typically decades or longer) in the average state of the climate with statistically significant variations. The climate change, defined as the long-term imbalance of customary weather conditions such as temperature, radiation, wind and rainfall characteristics of a particular region, is likely to be one of the main challenges for mankind during the present century. A general definition of climate change is a change in the statistical properties (principally the man and spread) of the climate system when considered over long periods. Climate Resilience Climate resilience can be generally defined as the capacity for a socioecological system to: Absorb stresses and maintain function in the face of external stresses imposed upon it by climate change. Adapt, reorganize, and evolve into more desirable configurations that improve the sustainability of the system, leaving it better prepared for future climate change impacts.

Climate change is now a global phenomenon and its impact on livelihood health and wellbeing, and overall quality of life is not deniable. No country is free from the overall impacts of climate change, but poor people of developing countries have been disproportionately affected by the adverse effects. Vulnerability in the context of climate change is a function of sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacities. Odisha is the 9th largest state by area and the 11th largest state by population in India. The state has an area of 155,707 km2, which is 4.87 per cent of the total area of India, and a coastline of 480 km. In the eastern part of the state lies the coastal plain. It extends from the Subarnarekha river in the north to the Rushikulya river in the south. The State is broadly divided into four geographical regions, i.e. Northern Plateau, Central River Basins, Eastern Hills and Coastal Plains. The climate of the state is characterized by hot summer and cold winter in the interior parts. The state has historically been highly prone to climate change and multiple hazards – mainly cyclones, droughts and ?oods. Natural disasters devastate millions of lives and livelihoods in Odisha each year. More children and women suffer from the effects of natural disasters and this is predicted to worsen as storms ?oods and droughts become more severe and frequent because of climate change.

Climate change may manifest itself as rapid changes in climate in the short term or subtler changes over decades. Generally, climate change is associated with an increasing global temperature. Various climate model projections suggest that by the year 2100, mean global temperature may be 1.1–6.4 °C warmer than in 2010. The difficulty facing livestock is weather extremes, e.g. intense heat waves, ?oods and droughts. In addition to production losses, extreme events also result in livestock death (Gaughan and Cawsell-Smith, 2015). Animals can adapt to hot climates, however the response mechanisms that are helpful for survival may be detrimental to performance. In this article we make an attempt to project the adverse impact of climate change on livestock production. There is a two-way relationship between livestock production and environmental health. Impact of climate change on livestocks The potential impacts on livestock include changes in production and quality of feed crop and forage, water availability, animal growth and milk production, diseases, reproduction, and biodiversity. These impacts are primarily due to an increase in temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, precipitation variation, and a combination of these factors. Temperature affects most of the critical factors for livestock production, such as water availability, animal production, reproduction and health. Forage quantity and quality are affected by a combination of increases in temperature, CO2 and precipitation variation. Livestock diseases are mainly affected by an increase in temperature and precipitation variation.

Introduction Climate change has been realised during 1840s when indisputable evidence of former ice ages was obtained. The climate has altered sufficiently in many parts of the world even within the last few decades which will affect the possibilities for agriculture and settlement. Reliable weather records have been kept only during the last hundred years or so, but proxy indicators of past conditions from tree rings, pollen in bog and lake sediments, ice core records of physical and chemical parameters, and ocean foraminifera in sediments provide a wealth of paleoclimatic data. The standard interval adopted by the World Meteorological Organization for climatic statistics is thirty years:1901–30, 1931–60, for example. However, for historical records and proxy indicators of climate, longer, arbitrary time intervals may be necessary to calculate average values. Tree rings and ice cores can give seasonal/annual records, while peat bog and ocean sediments may provide records with only 100- to 1,000-year time resolution. Hence, short-term changes and the true rates of change may, or may not, be identifiable. The present climatic state is usually described in terms of an average value (arithmetic mean, or the median value in a frequency distribution), a measure of variation about the mean (the standard deviation, or interquartile range), the extreme values, and often the shape of the frequency distribution. A change in climate can occur in several different ways, for example, there may be a shift in the mean level, or a gradual trend in the mean values. The variability may be periodic, quasi-periodic or non-periodic, or alternatively it may show a progressive trend . First, it is important to determine whether such changes are real or whether they are an artefact of changes in instrumentation, observational practices, station location, or the surroundings of the instrumental site, or due to errors in the transcribed data. Even when changes are real, it may be difficult to ascribe them to unique causes because of the complexity of the climate system. Natural variability operates over a wide range of time scales, and superimposed on these natural variations in climate are the effects of human activities.

Introduction The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports (IPCC, 2007) suggests that consequently occurring climate extremes are likely to increase the frequency and intensity in the future. In the Indian context, events such as landfall of rare of rarest most intense pre-monsoon Tropical cyclone Fani (2019), back to back landfall of very intense tropical cyclones such as Phalini (2013) and Hudbud (2014), Cyclone Komen (2015), Extreme rainfall events of Kerala (2018 and 2019), Heavy rainfall events of over Northeastern states of India (2019), Cloud burst events of Uttarakhand (2013), Rainfall over Himachal Pradesh (2019), Mumbai Rain fall (2015) and extreme heat wave conditions of 1998, 2015 and many similar type of extreme events are not usual. However, at present there is no unanimity among scientists to exclusively and directly link such extreme weather events to climate change, however based on number of studies and observation data sets it is agreed that the impact of climate change is evident (beyond the natural variability) in many part of the globe including India. In 2019 monsoon season at least 1351 deaths happened to ?oods, heavy rainfall and landslides compared to 1550 for year 2018. In this manuscript, recent research findings related to extreme weather events in the context India are discussed in the following section-2, need for high resolution and long term data sets are emphasized in section-3, followed by recommendations as part of future preparedness, that will not only enable us to address these issues in a robust scientific manner but also provide us strong resilient society to face these extreme weather events in an optimized and effective manner to minimize the loss of lives, properties and socio-economic conditions of citizens.

Introduction Climate-smart small ruminant production is an approach for transforming and reorienting the small ruminant production under the new realities of climate change. The main objective of climate-smart small ruminant production is to make the production sustainable for national food security, enhancement of resilience, and reduction of greenhouse gasses emission. Climate-smart agriculture is that, which increases the sustainable productivity, enhances resilience, reduce greenhouse gasses (GHG) and boost the achievements of national food security and development goals (FAO, 2013). In India, most of the rural communities earn their livelihood on smallholder livestock production system and they are very much vulnerable to climate change. Therefore, the need of the hour is to address the impact of climate change both in terms of adaptation as well as mitigation perspective (Vemeulen et al., 2013). The increase in population, the higher income, urbanization, and change in dietary preference leading to increased demand for animal products that pressurizing for higher productivity of livestock (Delgado et al., 1999; Thronton et al., 2007). The mutton production in our country was 399 million Kg in 2012 which will be around 537 million Kg by 2020, and 840 million Kg in 2030 and 1317 million Kg in 2050. However, the requirement for mutton would be 813 million Kg by 2020, 986 million Kg by 2030 and 1408 million Kg in 2050. Similarly, the wool production in the country is 44.7 million Kg in present time (2011-2012), which have to be increased 150, 180 and 200 million Kg in 2020, 2030 and 2050, respectively. But the harsh climatic condition, shrinkage grazing resources, increase in cultivation and industrialization and decline interest of new generation for small ruminant rearing; making a question mark to meet the future demand in the current production trend. The scarcity of resources, impact of climate change and increase demand for mutton has made the traditional coping mechanism less effective (Sidahmed, 2008). Therefore, we need climate-smart sheep and goat production option that can achieve the triple win scenario of increasing productivity, adapting and building resilience to climate change through a reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission (FAO, 2013; Shikuku et al., 2016).

Introduction In the past few decades, persistent change in climatic variables coupled with global warming lead to the genesis of climatic stress. Currently climatic stress is considered as the most serious ultimatum to livestock’s growth, development, production and reproduction in tropics and subtropics including India. Livestock’s in tropical countries are most commonly affected by the menace of climatic stress. It has been shown that, climatic stress upsets animal’s body homeostasis resulting in grievous decline in livestock’s production and productivity across the world. In general, livestock adapt to the climatic insults via behavioural, physiological, biochemical, metabolic, endocrine and molecular responses. Despite of these thermal adaptation mechanisms, livestock’s witnesses the perils of climatic stress thereby incur major loss in their production and productivity. Therefore, in this changing climatic scenario, it is imperative to rigorously understand and explore the precise mechanism of thermal adaptation to generate climate resilient species which could upsurge the socio-economic status of the farmers as well as the country.

Introduction Animals have delicate balance of heat production and heat loss, which is maintained by thermoregulatory mechanisms in response to environmental temperature and humidity combinations. When the heat loss is overrun by heat gain, heat stress occurs. During heat stress, increase in the core body temperature due to failure of homeostatic mechanism reduces productivity of the animals below their original genetic potential in growth, milk production, milk constituents and reproduction (Ravagnolo and Misztal, 2002). Impending climate change scenario is a unanimously accepted reality. Increase in the anthropogenic greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4and NO2) cause radiation leading to excess warming of the earth’s environmental system. According to IPCC, the predicted temperature rises for the end of 21st century may be in the range of 1.8oC to 4oC (IPCC, 2007). The climate change has complex impact on the livestock production. Temperature or heat stress will be one of the major environmental factor to in?uence the health and productivity of livestock population. The least tropically adapted livestock may be severely affected by heat stress. The manage mental and ameliorative practices can deal with the heat stress in short term, however the long term focus of developing genetic heat stress tolerance in livestock population will be a significant and impactful strategy.

Introduction Climate change has been, and continues to be one of the important causes of low productivity from animal agriculture in tropical countries like India through crop failures, fodder scarcity and increased incidence of endemic animal diseases. It impacts animal agriculture and cause immediate danger for human societies as livelihoods and food production are being adversely affected. Farm ruminant animals contribute to food supply by converting low-value materials, inedible or unpalatable for human, into milk, meat, and eggs and directly contribute to nutritional security. Besides contributing over one-fourth to the agricultural GDP, it provides employment to 18 million people in principal or subsidiary status in India. Nearly two-thirds of farm households are associated with farm animal rearing and 80% of them are small landholders (≤2 ha). As a result of various socio-economic and market driven factors, during the last one decade, large scale transformation took place in both extensive and intensive animal agriculture with regards to type and breed of the animal. A lot of high yielding, low disease resistant and more vulnerable crossbreed animal population have been increased in present animal production systems inorder to meet the market demands. Climate changes could impact severely the economic viability and production of these intensive animal production systems through increased incidence of drought/?oods/cyclones/hailstorms etc. Drought and high ambient temperatures in particular, affects production of milk, meat and egg, reproduction, health of animals and condition of pastures. Changes in pasture and crop biomass availability and quality affect animal production through changes in daily or seasonal feed supplies. Heavy rains and associated ?oods would washout the fodder resources and animals. Recent incidences of severe hail storms are causing brutal injuries to the grazing animals. To mitigate the adverse affects of extreme weather events and cope with changing climate, much precised resilient technologies suitable to local conditions and resources are needed. Hence, one should be critical in recommending smart animal-agriculture technologies in view of much diversified and heterogeneous group of farmers and the resources accessible to them. This will help in sustainable productivity from animal-agriculture and profitability to the farmers even in the era of climate change.

Introduction The animal husbandry and agriculture are the major resource of income for the farmers and directly affects the economic conditions of farmers. Livestock sector plays a vital role for livelihood food security in India. Buffalo plays an important role in dairy industry and contribute 49 per cent of total milk production in India (BAHS, 2017). Murrah is one of the best buffalo breeds in the world and also widely used for up-gradation of non-descript buffaloes in India. Murrah buffalo have poor thermoregulation mechanism compared to other domestic ruminants in tropical countries and are more prone to heat stress due to very less sweat glands, jet black colour and thin hairs on body surface (Das et al., 1999; Khongdee et al., 2013) which reduce the ability of cutaneous evaporation and largely responsible for its low productivity and consequently reducing the reproductive efficiency (Gudev et al., 2007). India continues to be the largest milk producer in the world since 1997. Milk production has increased from 165.4 million tonnes (2016-17) to 176.4 million tonnes (2017-18) (DAHD, GOI). The demand for milk is increasing at a very fast pace due to exponential population growth and the gap in the production and supply is increasing. Out of 300 million bovines, only 88 million are in milk leaving large unproductive animals including 84 million males (19th Livestock census, 2012). If the gap of production and supply is to be bridged, the large number of constraints that affect reproductive efficiency and productivity of dairy animals must be addressed effectively. One important factor that can contribute to the productivity of animals is qualitative production and quantitative adequacy of semen doses for A.I.

Introduction Stress represents the reaction of body to stimuli that disturb normal physiological equilibrium or homeostasis, often with detrimental effects (Khansari et al., 1990). Domestic animals undergo various kinds of stress such as physical, nutritional, chemical, psychological and thermal stress (Marai et al., 2007; Nardone et al., 2010). Figure 1 summarises the different types of stressors and their effects on animals.

Introduction Livestock plays an important role in the sustainable livelihood of poor people of rain-fed agro-ecosystem, because of inherent risk involved in the crop farming due to uncertainty of rainfall and occurrence of recurrent droughts. They provide income and increased economic stability, and often the most important “cash crops” in small-scale mixed farming systems. Livestock sector in India is highly livelihood intensive and most rural households own livestock of one species or the other and earn supplementary incomes from them. Livestock holding is less iniquitous than land holding and income from livestock is more equitably distributed. The sector contributes 25.6 per cent of the value of output at current prices of total value of output in agriculture, fishing & forestry sector and in GDP, it was 4.11% in 2012-13 (19th livestock census, 2012) therefore, development of the livestock sector is the critical pathway to rural prosperity As per the 19th livestock census, the total livestock population consisting of Cattle, Buffalo, Sheep, Goat, Pig, Horses & Ponies, Mules, Donkeys, Camels, Mithun and Yak in the country is 512.05 million numbers in 2012. The total Bovine population (Cattle, Buffalo, Mithun and Yak) is 299.9 million numbers in 2012 which shows a decline of 1.57% over previous census. In percentage basis distribution of livestock were: 37.28% were cattle, 21.23% buffaloes, 12.71% sheep, 26.40% goats and 2.01% pigs. The corresponding figures as per the 18th Livestock Census were 37.58%, 19.89%, 13.50%, 26.53% and 2.10%. The number of milch animals (in-milk and dry) in cows and buffaloes has increased from 111.09 million to 118.59 million, an increase of 6.75%. The number of animals in milk in cows and buffaloes has increased from 77.04 million to 80.52 million showing a growth of 4.51%. The Female Cattle (Cows) Population has increased by 6.52% over the previous census (2007) and the total number of female cattle in 2012 is 122.9 million numbers. The Female Buffalo population has increased by 7.99% over the previous census and the total number of female buffalo is 92.5 million numbers in 2012. The buffalo population has increased from 105.3 million to 108.7 million showing a growth of 3.19%. The total sheep in the country is 65.06 million numbers in 2012, declined by about 9.07% over census 2007. The Goat population has declined by 3.82% over the previous census and the total Goat in the country is 135.17 million numbers in 2012. The total poultry population in the country has increased by 12.39% over the previous census and the total poultry in the country is 729.2 million numbers in 2012. The total number of animals in milk in the country is 116.77 Million numbers.

Introduction Climate change is one of the biggest environmental threats to food production, water availability, forest biodiversity and livelihoods. Warming of climate system of the earth is a unanimously accepted reality and probably one of the most prominent challenges for scientists, development workers, policy makers and other relevant stakeholders regarding development and sustainability in international and national arena during past several years. Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPPC) has described climate change as any anthropogenic or naturally occurring alteration in the climate over time. It is widely believed that developing countries such as India will be impacted more severely than developed countries. Climate change is emerging as a big threat to sustainable development of agriculture including animal husbandry and to the livelihood of people. Extreme events such as cold waves, heat waves, ?oods and high intensity single day rainfall events are on increasing trend during the last decade (Dikshit and Birthal, 2010). It is probable that by 2030 the impacts of climate change will be noticeable, although not dramatic and will be largely manifested through changes in pasture growth and quality, and greater inter-annual variability in pasture production. Livestock contribute to climate change by emitting methane through enteric fermentation. But they are also affected by climate change it directly and indirectly, hence affecting their economic and social contributions. Various studies suggest that the changes in pasture growth, composition and production will be dependent on the actual combination of CO2, temperature and rainfall conditions. Livestock productions under both intensive and extensive systems are subjected to so many stresses, where they undergo different types of physiological adjustments to cope up with stressful conditions. Productions are drastically reduced during stress and require managemental interventions both in terms of optimum nutrition and health care (Soren, 2013).

Profitable broiler production demands dietary nutrients including energy, protein, mineral, vitamins and additives as per the body requirement to meet high growth of the birds. Though energy and protein are the principal nutrients required for growth of birds but the essential role of minerals in poultry production cannot be ignored. Minerals have multifaceted role in the body. They are the components of bones and other soft tissues and play significant role in acid base balance, osmotic pressure regulation and membrane permeability. Trace minerals have major role in functioning of various enzymatic, metabolic and biochemical reaction for effective utilization of nutrients. They are constituents of many proteins involved in metabolism of nutrients, immune defense systems and hormone secretion pathways. Deficiency diseases, metabolic disorders, poor growth rate, low production, low hatchability and low feed efficiency are normally observed on deficiency or imbalance supply of minerals to livestock and poultry. Along with other trace minerals, selenium is supplemented in broiler ration as an essential trace mineral required for normal growth and production of broiler birds. It was discovered in 1817 by J.J. Berzelius.

Introduction Climate change is one of the important areas of concern for world to ensure food and nutrition security to the growing population. The impacts of climate change are global but development countries like India are highly vulnerable as large population depends upon agriculture and allied service. As per the latest report, the global average temperature rises is 0.990C (NASA, 2016) since pre-industrial time (1850). The year 2016 ranks as the warmest year, 16 of the 17 warmest years in the 136 years record all have occurred since 2001. The predicted temperature rise for India is in the range 0.5-1.20C by 2020, 0.88-3.160C by 2050 and 1.56-5.440C by the year 2080. Studies in India showed significant negative impacts of climate change, predicted to reduce yields by 4.5 to 9.0%, depending on the magnitude and distribution of warming. Agriculture sector is contributing about 17.4% of India’s GDP, a 4.5-9.0% negative impact on production implies a cost of climate change to be roughly up to 1.5% GDP per year. Therefore, Govt. of India has accorded high priority on research and development to cope with the climate change in general and agriculture and allied sector. The Prime Ministers National Action Plan on Climate Change has Identified Agriculture and allied sector as one of the 8 national Missions. Agriculture and the future of global food security figure very importantly in climate change negotiations. As stated in Article II of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the goal is to ensure stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. With this background to meet the challenges of sustaining domestic food production in the face of changing climate and to generate information on adaptation and mitigation in agriculture to contribute to global for a like UNFCCC, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) launched a flagship network project National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) during XI plan in February 2011, and during XII Plan it is referred as National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA).

Introduction Climate change and pollution are the two major concerns that retard growth in animal sector particularly in a developing country like India. Pollution is directly contributed by human beings, while the former is also an after effect of continuous abuse of nature and natural resources. Hence these two areas are to be looked into seriously for country’s growth in general and animal production in particular. Stress Effect Stress is nothing but inability of an animal to cope with its environment, a phenomenon that is often ends up with a failure to achieve the full genetic potential. Stress may be from any origin and can even be a disease itself. There exists a variety of endocrine regulatory points of stress which limits the efficiency of production and reproduction. A simple transport produces an immediate constant increase in arginine, vasopressin and corticotrophinreleasing hormone secretion in animals. However, adenocorticotrophic hormone reaches a maximum in the first hour, while cortisol is highest during the second hour. Contrastingly, the hypothalamo–pituitary–adrenal response is delayed occurring only after glucose decreases below a threshold in an insulin treated animal. Negative feedback effects appear to operate mainly at the pituitary level during transport but at the hypothalamus during hypoglycaemia.

The extreme weather events being experienced at a greater frequency now a days are due to accelerated climate change caused mostly due to global warming. Global warming is basically a change in the climatic conditions of the Earth, brought about by a considerable rise in the near-surface temperature of the planet. Earth’s surface and the troposphere become warmer due to absorption of infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface by Green House Gases(GHGs). The important green house gases include carbon dioxide(CO2),methane(CH4) nitrous oxide(N2O), chloro-?uoro-carbons(CFCs), ozone(O3) and water vapour(H2O). Various climate models predict major changes in our weather patterns, environment, and way of life in absence of efforts for substantial reductions in GHG emissions. The CO2 gas concentration of atmosphere has increased to 385 ppm as against the normal concentration of 300 ppm. The atmosphere contains only 1 % of the total global carbon pool. The undesirable changes can be reversed by increasing soil and eco system carbon pools, increasing mean resident time(MRT) of sequestered carbon and decreasing GHG emission to atmosphere.

Livestock farming is an important activity to a large population of small and marginal farmers as well as landless agricultural labourers of Tamil Nadu. It also provides employment opportunities for most of the unemployed and underemployed in the rural areas. Tamil Nadu is bounded by the Eastern Ghats on the north, by the Nilgiris, the Anamalai Hills and Kerala on the west, by the Bay of Bengal in the east, and by the Indian Ocean on the south. Tamil Nadu is the eleventh largest state in India by area. The land area has been classified into seven agro-climatic zones based on soil characteristics, rainfall distribution, irrigation pattern, cropping pattern and other ecological and social characteristics. Tamil Nadu endowed with 13.97 per cent of recognised breeds of the domestic ruminants (cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats) with 22.55 millions of population (19thLivestock Census-2012).

Introduction Climate change represents a threat not only to the existence of individual species, but also to the genetic diversity hidden within them. The finding promises to complicate assessments of how climate change will affect biodiversity, as well as conservationists’ task in preserving it. Climate change comes as an additional factor affecting a livestock sector that is already highly dynamic and facing many challenges. Important objectives of AnGR management include ensuring that AnGR are effectively deployed to meet these challenges (i.e. are well matched to the production environments in which they are kept) and that the genetic diversity needed to adapt production systems to future changes is maintained. Climate change is likely to create a number of problems in many areas of animal husbandry (housing, feeding, health care, etc.) and threaten the sustainability of many livestock production systems and their associated AnGR. At the same time, many of the specific challenges associated with climate change (high temperatures, disruptions to feed supplies, disease outbreaks, etc,) as well as the general unpredictability it brings to the future of the livestock sector, highlight the importance of retaining diverse genetic options for the future. The upper critical temperature of dairy cattle is lower than other livestock species (Wathes et al.,1983).

Introduction Diversity connotes multiplicity of variety. In a given ecosystem, diversity refers to presence of number of different species of ?ora and fauna that have ecological niches in agreement with the environment. Scaling up, there exists diversity between different ecosystems. All life forms of ?ora and fauna on earth contains genetic material, that is the repository of an immense amount of genetic information in the form of traits, characteristics, etc. Focusing on the species level, genetic diversity refers to genetic variation that is observed in a population. Thus, genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. This provides in built latitude to the nature and/or the livestock breeders (including farmers) to manoeuvre/ manipulate so as evolve an improved population of desired qualities and traits. Further, genetic diversity is essential because the presence of adequate and appropriate genes in a population will make the species tide over adversaries owing to climate change and other emerging threats like new disease outbreaks. The ‘desired’ divergent gene pool provides the inherent resilient mechanism that equip the species to cope with likely challenging situation. Over the years, with human interventions, the genetic diversity has been interfered with to meet specific needs; mostly with respect to garnering higher production and productivity. In the process, the diversity has been compromised for achieving the unitary goal. In certain cases, geographical barriers and other bio-physical constraints have also led to loss of diversity within a population. Studies on impact of climate change especially the effect of rise in environmental temperature on milk production of dairy animals indicate that global warming will negatively impact milk production. During 2020, the annual loss in milk production of cattle and buffaloes due to thermal stress will be around 3.2 million tonnes of milk costing more than Rs 5000 Crore at current price. Similarly, there would be prevalence of many emerging diseases including those with zoonotic implications owing to change in climatic conditions. Thus, the present day society is confronted with an imminent development dilemma of ecology vs. economics more specifically genetic diversity vs. higher production. It has led to volume of debates and discussions on the livestock development agenda to be pursued. The apparently con?icting interests has also generated antipathy amongst two schools of development.

Introduction Birds lack sweat glands; hence non-evaporative cooling mechanism (radiation, conduction and convection) is the major route of heat dissipation within thermoneutral range. Beyond this TNZ, majority of heat loss occurs as insensible heat loss i.e., Panting. Panting is one of the visible responses in poultry during exposure to heat stress associated with considerable energy expenditure. This specialized form of respiration dissipates heat by evaporative cooling at the surface of the mouth and respiratory passage. Panting increase, the loss of CO2 from the lungs, this leads to a reduction in the partial pressure of CO2 and also reduces bicarbonate levels in blood plasma. In turn, the lowered concentration of hydrogen ions leads to rise in plasma pH, a condition generally referred to alkalosis (Daghir, 2009). Birds also respond by reducing their feed intake and thus metabolizable energy (ME) intake to reduce thermo genesis as an adoptive mechanism. If panting fails to prevent their body temperatures from rising, the birds become listless, comatose and soon die due to respiratory, circulatory or electrolyte imbalances (Saif et al., 2003).

Introduction The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2013) emphasized that warming of the climatic system is unequivocal and that anthropogenic warming will continue for centuries to come due to timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks. While stresses caused by climate change are likely to negatively impact the agricultural and livestock sector and escalate existing small-scale farming challenges; agricultural and livestock productivity and sustainability have to improve to meet the needs of the growing human population (DEA, 2013; Zamykal and Everingham, 2009). Climate change is seen as a major threat to the survival of many species, ecosystems and the sustainability of poultry production systems in many parts of the world. Nevertheless, global demand for poultry products is expected to increase, as a result of the growing human population, and its growing af?uence. The extreme climatic conditions impose various stresses on poultry birds which adversely affect their growth, production and reproduction. While climate change is a global phenomenon, its negative impacts are more severely felt by poor people in developing countries who rely mostly on the natural resource base for their livelihoods. Moreover, rural poor communities rely greatly for their survival on agriculture and poultry which belong to the most climate-sensitive economic sectors. Climate change is expected to intensify existing problems and create new combinations of risks and shift hazard zones. The incidences of draughts, snow-storms and blizzard like events have risen. The situation is made worst due to factors such as widespread poverty, inequitable land distribution, limited access to capital and technology inadequate infrastructure, long term weather forecasts and inadequate research and extension. Intensive poultry production has much less impact on global warming than organic or free-range production (Van der Sluis, 2007). Seo and Mendelsohn (2006) reported that small farms of poultry are better able to adapt to warming. However, organic egg production needs more energy than non-organic and increases most environmental burdens. The most disadvantageous, from environmental point of view, is litter-free breeding of birds which causes great amounts of liquid manure.

Introduction The egg production in India is 75 billion and the broiler production is 4.2 million tonnes per annum. The growth rate of layer market is 6-7 percent per annum and broiler market is 8-10 percent per annum. The Indian poultry sector is valued at INR 1 lakh cr or USD 15.38 bn. Approx. 80 percent of egg production is contributed by commercial poultry farms, remaining comes from household/ backyard poultry. Backyard poultry plays a key role in supplementary income generation and family nutrition to the poorest of the poor. It is estimated that there are around 30 million farmers engaged in backyard poultry as per 19th Livestock Census. Backyard poultry are being practiced for its inherent strengths. Free range birds reared by the farmers have the advantage of small body size, coloured plumage, broodiness to hatch chicks, adaptation to harsh climatic condition, lower diseases and production with least investment. The birds are scavenging in the backyard, supplemented by kitchen waste and are kept in low height houses for shelter using locally available materials. It helps to improve the nutritional status of rural poor and also improve the subsidiary income of the poor people. Such stocks make minimal use of land, labour and capital and integrate well into the backyard. Backyard poultry production system is self-sustaining because of minimal needs and can be afforded by poor people of the rural areas. The high yielding white feathered chicken varieties being reared in the intensive poultry farming are not suitable for backyard / free range backyard poultry farming due to the adverse climatic and high pathogen load prevailing in such rearing practices. Backyard poultry farming is an in-separable part of the poor tribal people and it will continue to be due to its advantages. Although backyard poultry production is not an occupation per se, it often supplements household income, primarily for poor families. Strengthening backyard poultry production may help overcome poverty and malnutrition in impoverished communities. However, the effect of climate change on these birds needs to be studied for its sustenance.

Introduction There is an ongoing debate on global warming worldwide as it is seriously impacting climate change. The global temperature has been increased by 0.74±0.18°C during the last century and the climate model projections summarized in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report indicate that the global surface temperature will probably rise a further 1.1 to 6.4°C during the twenty-first century (IPCC, 2007). High ambient temperature is one of the most important stressors to poultry, which has a direct relationship on profitability of chicken meat and egg production. A seasonal problem in many parts of the world, high environmental temperature (35-43oC in tropical countries) causes economic losses through reducing feed intake while decreasing nutrient utilization, live weight gain, egg production, egg quality and feed efficiency in poultry (Corzo et al., 2003; Panda et al., 2007a; 2008). The ideal temperature for broilers is 10-22oC for optimum body weight and 15-27oC for feed efficiency (NRC, 1994). Layers will produce egg constantly in the temperature range of 10-30oC. Above 30oC, performance in terms of growth and egg production declines.

Blood Sample collection Blood samples (5 ml per goat) will be collected aseptically from the jugular vein in a vacutainer tube (B.D. Bioscience, Germany) containing EDTA as anticoagulant and transferred to the laboratory in an ice box. Isolation of Genomic DNA The Genomic DNA will be isolated from the blood samples by ‘Phenol: chloroform isolation’ method as described by Sambrook and Russel (2001). The steps for isolation of genomic DNA are as follows:

Introduction Poultry production is one of the fastest growing sectors of livestock industry in developing countries. Environmental variation is one of the major factors that affect sustainability of poultry production systems in tropical climate (Sinha et al., 2017a). Adverse climatic stress declines the production performance of chicken which causes high economic loss to the enterprises as well as the farmers. Heat stress has an adverse effect on egg production, egg weight and shell quality of laying hen (Whitehead et al., 1998). Climatic variables like temperature, humidity, radiation and wind speed that directly affect the mechanism of thermoregulation and rates of heat exchange by all animals (NRC, 2001). Heat stress is a major factor that decreases productivity and reproductive efficiency of livestock due to lower feed intake and negative energy balance (De Rensis and Scaramuzzi, 2003). Moreover, it badly affect the production due to decline feed digestibility such as proteins, fats, starch (Bonnet et al., 1997). In addition, the acute heat stress drastically decreases the reproductive performance of hens due to alterations in acid-base balance and ion exchange mechanism (Mahmoud et al., 1996). Climate change in?uences the emergence of disease and their transmission due to increases vectors, pathogens. All the above effects impact a huge economic loss to the farmers as well as the country.

Introduction Nanotechnology and nanoparticles are increasingly recognized for their potential applications in various aspects of human animal and animal welfare like development of various healthcare or cosmetic products, nano-electronics and techniques for environmental remediation, and many consumer products. Nanoparticles, by definition, are structures that have one dimension in the 1–100 nm range. Nanotechnology involves the application of materials at the nanoscale to new products or processes. Over the past few decades, inorganic nanoparticles, whose structures exhibit significantly novel and improved physical, chemical, and biological properties, phenomena and functionality due to their nanoscale size, have elicited much interest. Nanophasic and nanostructure materials are attracting a great deal of attention because of their potential for achieving specific processes and selectivity, especially in biological and pharmaceutical applications. Nanotechnology has made a new generation industrial revolution by developing product and formulations for medical, agriculture (nano-fertilizers, nano-herbicides, nano-pesticides, recalcitrant contaminants from water, nano-scale carriers, nanosensors), veterinary care, fisheries and aquaculture, detection of nutrient deficiencies, preservation, photocatalysis, nanobarcode, quantum dots etc. It is a rapidly growing industry currently worth billions of U.S. dollars, with many potential benefits to society. Nanotechnology has the environmental applications to protect climate change and environmental pollution as nanocatalyst, light weight nanocomposite materials, nanocoatings, improved renewables and nanosensors. This fast growing technology is already having a significant commercial impact, which will certainly increase in the future. Because of their widespread application, the commercial nanotechnology industry is predicted to increase significantly to more $3 trillion in few years. While nanotechnologies offer many opportunities for innovation, the use of nanomaterials in food, agriculture and environment has also raised a number of safety, environmental, ethical, policy and regulatory issues.

Introduction Aquatic ecosystems are critical components of the global environment and provide a variety of resources for human population, including food, water for drinking and irrigation, recreational opportunities, and habitat for economically important fisheries. Fish is the main source of animal protein for 3 billion people worldwide, providing a valuable protein complement to the food platter worldwide. Fish is also an important source of essential vitamins and fatty acids. Furthermore, it provides an important source of cash income for many poor households and holds a great potential as a source of foreign exchange. However, aquatic ecosystems are increasingly being threatened directly and indirectly by climate change. Global warming with consequent climate variability and extreme weather conditions has a great impact on the aquatic ecosystems resulting in increased temperature variation, ocean acidification and freshwater salinization etc. As per report of IPCC 2018, global warming of 1.5 ºC above pre-industrial levels has been declared (IPCC, 2018) and expected to rise further in future. Thus, variations in temperature, salinity, acidity and dissolved oxygen along with the effects of other anthropogenic activities may exert strong in?uences on aquatic ecosystems and the aquatic animls will be facing these climate-related stressors in near future. Such environmental stressors is projected to alter fundamental ecological processes, geographic distribution of aquatic species, reproductive and immunological performance of species etc.

Introduction R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. It is a GNU project which is similar to the S language and environment which was developed at Bell Laboratories (formerly AT&T, now Lucent Technologies) by John Chambers and colleagues. R can be considered as a different implementation of S. There are some important differences, but much code written for S runs unaltered under R. R provides a wide variety of statistical (linear and nonlinear modelling, classical statistical tests, time-series analysis, classification, clustering) and graphical techniques, and is highly extensible. The S language is often the vehicle of choice for research in statistical methodology, and R provides an Open Source route to participation in that activity. In a nutshell, R is an open-source software environment for statistical computing that is rapidly becoming the tool of choice for data analysis in the life sciences and elsewhere. It’s developed by a large international community of scientists and programmers and is at the forefront of new developments in statistical computing.

Introduction Statistics generally refers to information about an activity or a process that is expressed in quantitate as well as qualitative traits. The quantitative research process is well structured whereas the qualitative one is fairly unstructured. It depends upon how a piece of information have been collected and analyzed. A good researchers need to have both types of skill. This article highlights about the operational procedure, about methods, procedures and techniques that are used in analysis of climate related data. Parameter vs Statistic When a data is collected with survey of all the individuals (like in a census) and analysed for certain values, it is called a parameter. But when, we guess the same value with a random sample and interpret for whole population it is called a statistic. Environmental parameters are: mean, variance, correlation, regression, heritability, repeatability etc. Again, there are two types of variables: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative variables can take any value in a specified range. So, they are of continuous type. But qualitative variables are very few types ( 2 ,3 or 4 types) and they are of discrete type. Body weight is an example of quantitative variable whereas, comb type is a qualitative variable.

Introduction In India, almost 85 % of our population resides in rural areas and the same proportion is dependent on agriculture for sustenance and animal husbandry for additional income. Distribution of livestock is more equitable compared to that of land and about 85 percent of livestock are owned by the landless, marginal and small landholding families. This sector provides employment for the farmers through livestock farming as well as in processing, value addition and marketing of livestock products. Rapid population, economic growth, increased demand for livestock products such as meat and dairy products, in?uences the present livestock production systemtowards intensive production. There is increased con?ict over scarce resources such as land, water, food grains etc. Losing livestock assets for rural communities might lead to abject poverty with serious effect ontheir livelihoods. The climate change impact will worsen the vulnerability of livestock systems and those farmers depending on livestock, particularly the poor.