Abstract
The development of camel husbandry for good production in a desert climate is very important, thus we need to understand the genetic basis of camels and give attention to genomic analysis. We assessed genome-wide diversity, linkage disequilibrium (LD), effective population size (Ne) and relatedness in 96 dromedaries originating from five different regions of the central desert of Iran using genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS). A total of 14,522 Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) with an average minor allele frequency (MAF) of 0.19 passed quality control and filtering steps. The average observed heterozygosity in the population was estimated at 0.25 ± 0.03. The mean of LD at distances shorter than 40 kb was low (r2 = 0.089 ± 0.234). The camels sampled from the central desert of Iran exhibited higher relatedness than Sudanese and lower than Arabian Peninsula dromedaries. Recent Ne of Iran’s camels was estimated to be 89. Predicted Tajima’s D (1.28) suggested a bottleneck or balancing selection in dromedary camels in the central desert of Iran. A general decrease in effective and census population size poses a threat for Iran’s dromedaries. This report is the first SNP calling report on nearly the chromosome level and a first step towards understanding genomic diversity, population structure and demography in Iranian dromedaries.
Highlights
Camels have a unique morphology and physiology as they are capable of providing vital products in a desert climate, even under harsh conditions
Average observed heterozygosity in the Iranian central desert dromedaries was estimated at 0.25 ± 0.03
Commercial Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) arrays have been developed for many livestock animals but no SNPchip is available for dromedaries
Summary
Camels have a unique morphology and physiology as they are capable of providing vital products in a desert climate, even under harsh conditions. Camelini (one- and two-humped camels) and Lamini (New World camels) are two tribes of the Camelidae family [1]. Camelids influence human endurance and thriving in the peripheral agro-natural zones of (semi-) deserts [2]. Camels have gained significance as sustainable livestock species with certain important properties (e.g., immunogenic and milk composition) [3]. Out of around 35 million camel heads of the world (FAO, 2019), the more significant part (95%) are dromedary [4]. There are 138,659 camels in Iran (FAO, 2019), and most of them are dromedaries producing 0.5% of total red meat in Iran [5]. Over 84% of Iran is arid or semi-arid [7]
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