Abstract
A population structure study was performed in South African ovine populations using the OvineSNP50 beadchip. Blood samples were obtained from 295 sheep of which 172 had been identified as smallholder Dorpers, 4 smallholder White Dorpers, 46 purebred Dorpers, 26 purebred South African Mutton Merinos and 47 purebred Namaqua Afrikaners. Blood from the latter three breeds were obtained from a resource flock maintained on the Nortier research farm. Genetic diversity was estimated using allelic richness (A r), observed heterozygosity (H o), expected heterozygosity (H e) and inbreeding coefficient (F). Population structure analysis was performed using fastSTRUCTURE to determine the breed composition of each genotyped individual. The Namaqua Afrikaner had the lowest H e of 0.280 ± 0.18 while the H e of smallholder Dorper, Dorper and South African Mutton Merino did not differ and were 0.364 ± 0.13, 0.332 ± 0.16 and 0.329 ± 0.17, respectively. The average inbreeding coefficient was highest for the pure breeds, Namaqua Afrikaner, Dorper and South African Mutton Merino compared to the average inbreeding coefficient for the smallholder Dorper population. The smallholder Dorper were introgressed with Namaqua Afrikaner, South African Mutton Merino and White Dorpers. Similarly, the smallholder Dorper population was more genetically diverse than the purebred Dorper, South African Mutton Merino and Namaqua Afrikaner from the research farm. The higher genetic diversity among the smallholder sheep may be advantageous for their fitness and can be used to facilitate selective breeding.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the smallholder farmers from the Ebenheaser community for allowing us access to their sheep flocks. We appreciate the assistance of the Western Cape Department of Agriculture for providing data and genotypes for the Nortier Experimental sheep flock. We also acknowledge funding obtained from NUFFIC for genotyping and a Thuthuka award from the National Research foundation (NRF).
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Approval for this research was sought and received from the Departmental Ethics Committee for Research on Animals (DECRA) approval numbers of R12/53 for smallholder flocks and R14/100 for the experimental flock from the Western Cape Department of Agriculture.
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Molotsi, A.H., Taylor, J.F., Cloete, S.W. et al. Genetic diversity and population structure of South African smallholder farmer sheep breeds determined using the OvineSNP50 beadchip. Trop Anim Health Prod 49, 1771–1777 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-017-1392-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-017-1392-7