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Gareth Frank Difford

Gareth Frank Difford

Post Doctor

  • Breeding, Genetics and Food Production Systems

My research is founded in the transdisciplinary field of phenomics, where the goal is to develop and validate new methods of measuring phenotypes on animals. We strive to continuously push measurement technology to overcome barriers in 'expensive or difficult to measure traits', by focusing on non-invasive, cost effective, rapid and large-scale measurements. The unifying task is to map the phenome to genome for selective breeding of better animals towards improving food security, animal welfare, sustainable development, and climate change. My research areas span high dimensional data streams such as sensors in time series, NIR and Raman spectroscopy, microbiomics, metabolomics, images and X-rays. Species of particular interest are Atlantic salmon, dairy cattle & sheep. I lead the PhenotypeForge https://garethdifford.com/phenotypeforge 

  • Publications

    List of publications from my research. (Cristin)

    Selected publications: 

    Difford, Gareth Frank, Damian Rafal Plichta, Peter Løvendahl, Jan Lassen, Samantha Joan Noel, Ole Højberg, André-Denis G. Wright et al. "Host genetics and the rumen microbiome jointly associate with methane emissions in dairy cows." PLoS genetics 14, no. 10 (2018): e1007580. Link

    Difford, G. F., Lassen, J., & Løvendahl, P. (2016). Interchangeability between methane measurements in dairy cows assessed by comparing precision and agreement of two non-invasive infrared methods. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 124, 220-226. Link

    Difford, G. F., Løvendahl, P., Veerkamp, R. F., Bovenhuis, H., Visker, M. H. P. W., Lassen, J., & De Haas, Y. (2020). Can greenhouse gases in breath be used to genetically improve feed efficiency of dairy cows?. Journal of Dairy Science, 103(3), 2442-2459. Link

    Difford, G. F., Horn, S. S., Dankel, K. R., Ruyter, B., Dagnachew, B. S., Hillestad, B., ... & Afseth, N. K. (2021). The heritable landscape of near-infrared and Raman spectroscopic measurements to improve lipid content in Atlantic salmon fillets. Genetics Selection Evolution, 53(1), 1-11. Link

    Difford, G. F., Boison, S. A., Khaw, H. L., & Gjerde, B. (2020). Validating non-invasive growth measurements on individual Atlantic salmon in sea cages using diode frames. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 173, 105411. Link

    Difford, G. F., Díaz-Gil, C., Sánchez-Moya, A., Aslam, M. L., Horn, S. S., Ruyter, B., ... & Sonesson, A. K. (2021). Genomic and Phenotypic Agreement Defines the Use of Microwave Dielectric Spectroscopy for Recording Muscle Lipid Content in European Seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax). Frontiers in genetics, 12. Link

    Difford, G. F., Haugen, J. E., Aslam, M. L., Johansen, L. H., Breiland, M. W., Hillestad, B., ... & Jacq, C. (2022). Variation in volatile organic compounds in Atlantic salmon mucus is associated with resistance to salmon lice infection. Scientific reports, 12(1), 1-10. Link

  • Teaching

    BIN302 Advanced analysis for high throughput phenotyping and precision farming 

    https://www.nmbu.no/course/BIN302