Ex situ and in situ data for endangered livestock breeds in Spain

Improvements in ex situ storage of genetic and reproductive materials offer an alternative for endangered livestock breed conservation. This paper presents a dataset for current ex situ collections and in situ population for 179 Spanish livestock breeds of seven species, cattle, sheep, pig, chicken, goat, horse and donkey. Ex situ data was obtained via survey administered to 18 functioning gene banks in Spain and relates to the reproductive genetic materials (semen doses) of 210 livestock breeds distributed across the gene banks. In situ data combines CENSUS information with linear regression techniques and relates to the geographic distribution of 179 Spanish autochthonous livestock breeds (2009-2018), and in situ population projections and extinction probabilities (2019-2060). We use a decision variable defining an “acceptable level of risk” that allows decision makers to specify tolerable levels of in situ breed endangerment when taking ex situ collection and storage decisions.


a b s t r a c t
Improvements in ex situ storage of genetic and reproductive materials offer an alternative for endangered livestock breed conservation. This paper presents a dataset for current ex situ collections and in situ population for 179 Spanish livestock breeds of seven species, cattle, sheep, pig, chicken, goat, horse and donkey. Ex situ data was obtained via survey administered to 18 functioning gene banks in Spain and relates to the reproductive genetic materials (semen doses) of 210 livestock breeds distributed across the gene banks.
In situ data combines CENSUS information with linear regression techniques and relates to the geographic distribution of 179 Spanish autochthonous livestock breeds (2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018), and in situ population projections and extinction probabilities (2019-2060). We use a decision variable defining an "acceptable level of risk" that allows decision makers to specify tolerable levels of in situ breed endangerment when taking ex situ collection and storage decisions. DOI

Value of the Data
• The data contains the most up to date information of ex situ collections and in situ populations of Spanish livestock breeds. The data provides valuable information on the prioritization of endangered breeds to support national biodiversity conservation efforts for livestock. • The data will be useful for decision makers planning ex situ collections in Spain, including universities, livestock industry and government. • The data can be used for the rationalization, planning and investment decision making for ex situ collections and in situ conservation effort s f or biodiversity conservation. Table 1 describes the number of semen doses of 210 livestock breeds currently in 18 Spanish gene banks (GB) in 2018. "Species -breed" represents a livestock species, cattle, chicken, donkey, goat, horse, pig and ship, followed by the breed name, e.g., "cattle -avilena". The values in the GB1 to GB18 rows represent the number of semen doses, in straws of 0.25mL that are stored in the Spanish gene banks. Table 2 describes the geographic location of Spanish livestock breeds. The rows "a_coruna", "alava" to "zaragoza" are 52 Spanish provinces and values in the rows represent the number of breeding males available for ex situ collections (data for 2018). Table 3 shows the travel distances (in km) between the 52 Spanish provinces considered in the study. Table 4 shows the in situ CENSUS data [3] for breeding males (potential semen donors). The columns "2009" to "2018" are the years for which the CENSUS data is available, while the values in the rows are the number of breeding males for each of the livestock breeds in Spain. Table 5 shows the projected number of breeding females from 2009 to 2060 using a linear regression and CENSUS data. The columns "a" and "b" are coefficients of the linear regression y = a + b * x. Table 6 shows the lower bound of the projected number of breeding females (2009 to 2060) from the linear regression with 95% confidence. Table 7 shows the upper bound of the projected number of breeding females (2009 to 2060) from a linear regression with 95% confidence. Table 8 describes the annual probability of critical risk under CTC (critical) scenario, i.e., it shows the probability of the number of breeding females (Nbf) being fewer than 100 animals using Eq. (1) . Table 9 shows the annual probability of endangerment risk under EDG (endangered) scenario, i.e., the probability of the number of breeding females (Nbf) being fewer than 10 0 0 animals using Eq. (1) . Table 10 describes information on FAO [2] recommended number of donors ( α), recommended number of doses per donor of species ( β), equivalent number of straws (0.25mL) per semen dose, total doses per collection (μ) (equivalent in straws), for cattle, goat, sheep, equine (horse and donkey), pig and chicken. A survey (See Supplementary Information ) was also distributed to 8 autonomous community gene banks and another 10 gene banks selected by geographical location and/or biological material stored. The survey gathered information on species germplasm and breeds and economic data related to gene bank maintenance costs and ex situ collection costs.

Experimental Design, Materials and Methods
To plan ex situ collections from 2018 to 2060 we used data for 210 livestock breeds, of which 179 are Spanish autochthonous breeds distributed across 52 provinces, 18 gene banks based in 15 different locations. We used census data from 2009 to 2018 for the linear regression and the production bounds calculated using Matlab [4] . The coeficients for the linear regression are presented in Table 5.
The lower and upper bounds of the in situ projections, respectively L t,sb and U t,sb (Table 6 and 7, respectively), representing the number of breeding females in year t of Spanish breed sb, is used to calculated the extinction probabilities (Riskt,sb) as follows Where N is equal 100 for CTC scenario, and 10 0 0 for EDG scenario (Table 8 and 9).
Matlab code for generating and plotting a linear regression for in situ populations, i.e., Tables 5-7) is presented as Supplementary Information .

Ethics Statement
Participation in the survey was voluntary and respondents were informed that the data would be analyzed anonymously. In participating in the survey and submitting the questionnaire each respondent (gene bank manager) gave their informed consent.

Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that have or could be perceived to have influenced the work reported in this article.