Abstract
Increasing concern is directed towards genetic diversity of domestic animal populations because strong selective breeding can rapidly deplete genetic diversity of socio-economically valuable animals. International conservation policy identifies minimizing genetic erosion of domesticated animals as a key biodiversity target. We used breeding records to assess potential indications of inbreeding and loss of founder allelic diversity in 12 native Swedish dog breeds, traditional to the country, ten of which have been identified by authorities as of conservation concern. The pedigrees dated back to the mid-1900, comprising 5–11 generations and 350–66,500 individuals per pedigree. We assessed rates of inbreeding and potential indications of loss of genetic variation by measuring inbreeding coefficients and remaining number of founder alleles at five points in time during 1980–2012. We found average inbreeding coefficients among breeds to double–from an average of 0.03 in 1980 to 0.07 in 2012 –in spite of the majority of breeds being numerically large with pedigrees comprising thousands of individuals indicating that such rapid increase of inbreeding should have been possible to avoid. We also found indications of extensive loss of intra-breed variation; on average 70 percent of founder alleles are lost during 1980–2012. Explicit conservation goals for these breeds were not reflected in pedigree based conservation genetic measures; breeding needs to focus more on retaining genetic variation, and supplementary genomic analyses of these breeds are highly warranted in order to find out the extent to which the trends indicated here are reflected over the genomes of these breeds.
Highlights
Domestic animals are often bred under strong selection that focuses on a few specific traits, and this type of breeding is considered to result in loss of genetic biodiversity both in the form of entire breeds–typically old, traditional, local ones–and in variation within breeds [1]
Increasing focus is directed towards genetic diversity of domestic animal populations both scientifically [2, 3, 4] and politically [5]
For the breeds of the present study current census sizes imply that future increase of inbreeding and loss of genetic variation has the potential to be miniscule if more dogs are used in breeding and extreme variation in offspring production between separate dogs are avoided
Summary
Domestic animals are often bred under strong selection that focuses on a few specific traits, and this type of breeding is considered to result in loss of genetic biodiversity both in the form of entire breeds–typically old, traditional, local ones–and in variation within breeds [1]. Increasing focus is directed towards genetic diversity of domestic animal populations both scientifically [2, 3, 4] and politically [5]. Rapid inbreeding and loss of pedigree-measured diversity in traditional dog breeds. The exact raw data that we have obtained from the Swedish Kennel Club and have used in the present study covering a time period up until December 31, 2012 for the twelve dog breeds of focus here can be obtained directly from us (the authors)
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