Evaluation of genetic variability in the collared peccary Pecari tajacu and the white-lipped peccary Tayassu pecari by microsatellite markers

Roxane Wirschum Silva,Thales R.O De Freitas,Ives José Sbalqueiro

doi:10.1590/s1415-47572010005000002

Abstract

In this study, the microsatellite technique was used to evaluate the genetic variability in populations of collared and white-lipped peccaries kept in captivity. Six primers developed for domestic pigs were used and amplified in both species. They revealed the presence of five polymorphic loci and one monomorphic locus. The polymorphic loci included 4 of the 16 alleles in collared peccaries, and 3 of the 10 alleles in the white-lipped peccaries. Polymorphic information content (PIC) in both species and all the loci was highly informative. The probability of paternity exclusion (PEC), if one of the parents is known, was almost as high in white-lipped peccaries (95.53%) as in the collared (99,48%). The Fst values for collared (0.042) and white-lipped (0.1387) peccaries showed that both populations are not structured. The Fis values for all loci, except ACTG2 in white-lipped peccaries (-0.0275) and in both species (0.1985 to 0.9284 in collared peccaries and 0.3621 to 0.4754 in the white-lipped), revealed a high level of homozygosis, probably caused by inbreeding. Data on heterologous amplification and genetic variability in collared and white-lipped peccaries are presented for the first time.

Highlights

The family Tayassuidae belongs to the order Artiodactyla, suborder Suiformes, superfamily Suoidea, and contains three genera and three species (Groves and Grubb, 1993): the collared peccary Pecari tajacu (Linnaeus, 1758), the white-lipped peccary Tayassu pecari (Link, 1795) and the chacoan peccary Catagonus wagneri (Rusconi, 1930)
Cytogenetic studies show that T. pecari has 26 chromosomes, the two largest chromosome pairs being submetacentric, besides nine pairs of bi-armed chromosomes, the smallest autosomal pair being acrocentric, whereas the sexual pair is formed by a medium-sized acrocentric X chromosome and a small acrocentric Y
Microsatellites are the best molecular markers for evaluating this variability, affording outstanding results. This problem has already been partly solved through heterologous amplification of microsatellite loci of the domestic pig Sus scrofa domestica, for instance, in both P. tajacu (Lowden et al, 2002; Gongora et al, 2002) and T. pecari (Gonela, 2003)

Summary

Introduction

The family Tayassuidae belongs to the order Artiodactyla, suborder Suiformes, superfamily Suoidea, and contains three genera and three species (Groves and Grubb, 1993): the collared peccary Pecari tajacu (Linnaeus, 1758), the white-lipped peccary Tayassu pecari (Link, 1795) and the chacoan peccary Catagonus wagneri (Rusconi, 1930). The two main goals of the present study were to evaluate genetic variability in both species, a completely unknown factor in captive populations on farms in the state of Paraná, by using six heterologous molecular microsatellite markers developed for the domestic pig (Sus scrofa domestica).

Results

Conclusion