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Publication
Genetic diversity in the portuguese Mertolenga cattle breed assessed by pedigree analysis
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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The Mertolenga beef cattle, currently with 27,000 breeding females in Portugal, is the largest
Portuguese native breed, despite some variation in the breeding stock over the last years. The purpose
of this study was to estimate parameters related to the population structure and genetic diversity
and to investigate the major factors affecting genetic erosion in the breed, based on the pedigree
herdbook information collected since the 1950s, including records on 221,567 animals from 425 herds.
The mean generation intervals were 6.4 years for sires and 7.1 years for dams, respectively. The rate
of inbreeding per year was 0.183% ± 0.020% and the correspondent effective population size was
38.83. In the reference population (35,017 calves born between 2015 and 2019), the average inbreeding
and relatedness were 8.82% ± 10% and 2.05% ± 1.26%, respectively. The mean relationship among
animals from the same and from different herds was 29.25% ± 9.36% and 1.87% ± 1.53%, respectively.
The estimates for the effective number of founders, ancestors, founding herds and herds supplying
sires were 87.9, 59.4, 21.4 and 73.5, respectively. Although the situation of the Mertolenga breed is
not alarming, these results indicate the need to adopt measures to maintain the genetic variability of
the population
Description
Keywords
native cattle inbreeding founders ancestors population structure Bovinae Raça mertolenga Variação genética Estrutura da população
Citation
Carolino, N. ; Vitorino, A.; Carolino, I.; Pais, J.; Henriques, N.; Silveira, M. & Vicente, A. (2020). Genetic diversity in the Portuguese Mertolenga cattle breed assessed by pedigree analysis. Animals 10(11), 1990; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10111990. https://ww.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/11/1990
Publisher
MDPI AG