Abstract
AbstractSheko is African taurine cattle, valued for its milk yield, adaptation to humid tsetse infested environment and trypanotolerance. We used 30 microsatellite markers in analyzing 30 DNA samples. We found high genetic diversity and no genetic bottlenecks in endangered Sheko cattle. Sheko cattle have not undergone recent genetic bottlenecks, in spite of drastic reduction in its overall demographic population size. The results were supported by three statistical methods: (i) detection of heterozygosity excess (ii) a mode-shift indicator of allele distribution pattern (iii) the ratio of the number of alleles to the range of allele size, M-ratio test. This breed reflects historical and cultural identity of local communities and represents a unique component of the global domestic animal biodiversity that deserve priority for conservation.
Highlights
There is a general consensus that 70% of the livestock existing today are found in developing countries where the risk of genetic extinction is high[1]
We found high genetic diversity and no genetic bottlenecks in endangered Sheko cattle
We have evaluated the levels of genetic diversity and whether the recent reductions in population size observed in Sheko cattle could have had any negative impact on its genetic architecture
Summary
The mode-shift indicator test revealed a normal L-shaped distribution pattern of allele frequencies (Fig. 1); indicating the presence of a larger proportion of low frequency (< 0.1) allele classes. This result lends further support to the lack of a recent genetic bottleneck in the Sheko breed. The 0.7457 mean M value obtained in this study was above 0.68 which Garza and Williamson[17] suggested that for data set based on ≥ 7 microsatellite loci, values of M ≤ 0.68 are indicative of a recent population bottleneck This result and the above tests reinforce the lack of a recent genetic bottleneck in Sheko breed
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