Abstract
Holstein bulls and semen have been imported to Russia from Western countries since the 1970s. The objective of our study was to examine the effect of this introgression on genetic diversity between various commercial Holstein herds in the Leningrad region. A total of 803 Holstein cows from 13 herds were genotyped using the Illumina BovineSNP50 v.2 array. The pairwise Hudson’s estimator of Fst values between 13 herds varied from 0.002 to 0.015, which is less than values usually obtained between dairy cattle breeds (> 0.1). The mean of these pairwise Fst values revealed differences between herds depending, mainly, on the proportion of common sires shared between the herds. In addition, we investigated the cause of negative Fst values. Based on our results, these negative values could be interpreted as an excess of within-herd genetic diversity over the between-herds genetic diversity. Our results show that introgressions of Holstein genes into Russian Black and White cattle of the Leningrad region have created genetic separation between herds similar with those for Jersey cows in USA, Australia and New Zealand.
Highlights
Minimizing the rate of inbreeding and maintaining genetic diversity are important goals of all successful dairy cattle breeding operations
The pairwise comparisons of herd 4 with the other 12 herds showed the largest Fst values compared to all other herd comparisons (Table 1)
Negative Fst values were reported in our study, and based on Equation 2 and a simple simulation (Table 3) we show that there is a limit value depending on proportion of shared genetics after which negative of
Summary
Minimizing the rate of inbreeding and maintaining genetic diversity are important goals of all successful dairy cattle breeding operations. Pedigree information is very helpful in the management of population genetic diversity. With the new single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array technology, massive SNP data can be used for more accurate estimation of genetic diversity both within and between herds. The Leningrad region is the leading dairy farm region in Russia, with approximately 60 000 cows of holsteinized Black and White cattle. Danish, and Swedish Black and White bulls and heifers were imported to Russia during the 1930s. The Black and White breed was officially approved in Russia in 1959. To improve the genetic potential of Black and White cattle, local breeders have used Holstein bulls and semen imported from USA (since 1978)
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