Bioeconomy Science Institute (Formerly AgResearch) Principal Scientist Dr Shannon Clarke was the recipient of the McMeekan Award at the 2026 NZSAP conference held in Hamilton.
Nomination for Shannon Clarke
We nominate Dr Shannon Clarke for NZSAP McMeekan Memorial Award. This award recognises an outstanding individual contribution to animal production in New Zealand during the last 5 years. Shannon is the Team Leader of Animal Genetics at AgResearch Invermay. She has led research in three major initiatives over this period which have enhanced New Zealand animal production for farmed ruminants and aquaculture species.
The first programme has been the introduction of meat eating-quality breeding values to the New Zealand sheep industry via the FarmIQ PGP, which has been included within the B+LNZ Genetics evaluation service since 2019. The second is the successful introduction and deployment of routine DNA sequencing technology to allow low cost genotyping for a wide variety of species. This has had a major impact in the deer, goat and aquaculture industries in New Zealand. The third programme has been the introduction of low-cost SNP chips enabling routine evaluation of single-gene traits, DNA assigned parentage and genomic breeding values in sheep. This had a synergistic effect on the outcome of the FarmIQ PGP Project mentioned above.
The FarmIQ PGP meat eating-quality project commenced in late 2010 and was initially involved in developing a high-density SNP chip via sequencing of several hundred animals of breeds from New Zealand and around the world. This was coupled with the evaluation over 20,000 progeny of a variety of terminal sire breeds for growth, carcass composition and meat eating quality. From these results, an industry implementation strategy was devised that relied on ongoing progeny testing in a genomic calibration flock coupled with routine use of low-cost SNP chips in ram breeding flocks. After several years of validation, this was commercially implemented into the industry in 2017 and the routine evaluation was included in the B+LNZ Genetics evaluation system in 2019. Results to date suggest at least 50% of New Zealand’s terminal sires sold come from flocks using this technology and these flocks provide more than 70% of the leading sires on the New Zealand Terminal Worth Index. Genetic trends suggest meat marbling is increasing and tenderness is improving while colour stability and pH are stable, as other important traits such as growth and lean meat yield are increasing at the same or a greater rate than prior to implementation. The overall index is improving on average some 30% faster than the industry as a whole for the flocks involved.
The introduction of genotyping via DNA sequencing either using restriction enzymes (GBS) or amplicons (GT-seq) has had a major impact on New Zealand agriculture. Shannon was the key person justifying the purchase of the sequencer, managing the research staff using the sequencer, and is associated with a variety of research projects developing and implementing methods using the DNA-sequencer. The major industry impact to date has been in the New Zealand deer industry, where essentially all New Zealand stags come from herds using DNA parentage derived from this approach and soon will have genomic selection available. However, a variety of other industries have used low cost GBS including dairy goat breeders, salmon breeders as well as a variety of plant species in their breeding research. The impact of this technology, however, has affected ancillary research into plant and animal pests, native species and even the bacteria that exist within their animal hosts in places like the rumen.
The final area has been the development of a low-cost SNP chip that is widely used in the New Zealand sheep industry for genomic selection. Building on previous more expensive platforms, this development has enabled multiple independent DNA-parentage assays to be incorporated onto a single SNP chip and provides much more flexibility and utility to the breeder. New Zealand is currently the largest user worldwide of this technology in sheep.
In summary, in addition to her involvement in several international initiatives to improve the sheep genome assembly and annotation including more recently its methylation profile, leading the animal genomics team, supervising the only New Zealand DNA sequencing platform providing commercial implementation of genotyping by sequencing in over 70 plant and animal species, Shannon Clarke has been leading in three major initiatives that have been or are now making a major impact on New Zealand animal production: breeding for meat quality in sheep, genotyping by sequencing especially in deer and aquaculture, and development of a low cost SNP chip for use in sheep. As such she would be an outstanding recipient of the NZSAP McMeekan Memorial Award and we note would also be the first woman to receive the Award.
Nominator: Jamie Ward,
Seconders: John McEwan and Neville Jopson