EVALUATION OF GENETIC DIVERSITY IN SELECTED BEEF BREEDS

Abstract

The aim of the study was to estimate genetic drift and gene flow related to population structure and genetic diversity in selected beef cattle. For the evaluation of the genetic drift and gene flow among analysed populations, the Bayesian Population Structure Analysis and software Treemix were used. The genetic analysis included two cattle breeds bred in Slovakia (Charolais and Limousine). In addition to the Limousine and Charolais breeds, other beef cattle (Angus N = 90, Belgian Blue N = 4, Blonde d'Aquitaine N= 5, Hereford N = 98 and Red Angus N = 15) were analysed. The 50k Bead chip was used; the dataset consisted of 34,834 SNPs. To avoid detection bias, SNPs with high linkage disequilibrium (r2 = 0.05) were pruned from the database; the final data set consisted of 296 animals and 2,539 SNP markers. Our results reflected four modes of gene flow between Angus, Red Angus, Charolais, Limousine and Hereford. Analysed breeds were not confirmed to influence genetic make-up of Belgian Blue and Blonde d'Aquitaine populations. All migration edges reached weight values below 0.2. The only two migration edges higher in weight was observed, first between the ancestor of Limousine breed into Blond d'Aquitaine, and second among historical ancestor of Hereford breed into Red Angus. Our results reflect that the donor population has made a significant contribution to the recipient population.