Comparison of Fleckvieh and Montbeliarde Stud Bulls with Turkish Simmental Stud Bulls in Terms of Genetic Structure and Diversity

Abstract

The original Simmental cattle stood out for their potentials of durability, rapid growth and milk quality. They deliver many kinds of breeding types due to their multi-purpose production. The goals of Simmental cattle breeding has been diverted many times since its domestication. Intensive selection programs applied to increase the frequency of alleles associated with economically important traits in the population may cause the frequencies of some alleles to decrease or even disappear. In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the diversity of Simmental cattle subpopulations, which have been subjected to many crossbreeding and selection programs since their existence, by using their sire lines. For this purpose, genetic structure and diversity were evaluated using microsatellite data of 16 Simmental bulls bred in Türkiye and 115 Fleckvieh and 27 Montbeliarde breeding bulls whose semen imported to Türkiye. As a result, it was observed that the genetic structure of Montbeliarde subpopulation had more homogenity than Fleckvieh and Turkish Simmental subpopulations. Besides, the genetic structure of Turkish Simmental subpopulation was similar to Fleckvieh subpopulation.