Genetic relationships between Spanish Assaf (Assaf.E) and Spanish native dairy sheep breeds

Abstract

a b s t r a c tAt present, the Assaf is the main dairy sheep in Spain. The Spanish Assaf (Assaf.E) was formed by male-mediated absorption of native Spanish sheep. Here we assess the genetic relationships among the Assaf.E and major native Spanish dairy breeds using microsatellites to contribute to the knowledge of the formation and within-population genetic variability of the breed. Blood samples from 44 unrelated Assaf.E individuals from 23 different Assaf.E flocks spread throughout 6 different Spanish provinces were obtained and genotyped using 14 microsatellites. Up to 312 additional samples belonging to the Awassi and Milchschaf sheep breeds and to six native Spanish dairy sheep breeds (Castellana, Churra, Latxa, Manchega, and Rubia de El Molar) as well as samples from Merino individuals to be used as the outgroup were also analysed observed (H o ) and expected (H e ) heterozygosity, rarefacted number of alleles per locus and distances based on molecular coancestry information were computed. Probabilities of assignment of the Assaf.E individuals to native Spanish dairy sheep breeds and cryptic genetic structure in the whole dataset were also assessed. It can be concluded that the Assaf.E breed has low genetic variability and high genetic distance with respect native Spanish dairy sheep breeds. From our results, the formation of the Assaf.E breed basically occurred via the absorption of individuals belonging to the Entrefino type, particularly to the Castellana and Manchega populations. Furthermore, Churra individuals may have participated in the formation of the Assaf.E breed at an early moment of the introduction of the breed into Spain.

Genetic structure and variability within and among populations of the fat-tailed Barbarine sheep breed using microsatellites markers

“…In South African sheep breeds, the AR and H o values were significantly lower than those obtained in the BAR (Soma et al, 2012). Previous studies presented the same range of within-breed genetic variability in Italian sheep breed (Bozzi et al, 2009;Lasagna et al, 2011;Tolone et al, 2011) and in Austrian and Spanish sheep breeds (Baumung et al, 2006;Legaz et al, 2008), whereas Bhatia (2004, 2006) and Sodhi et al (2006) found lower values while investigating Indian sheep breeds. The large genetic diversity of the BAR was also demonstrated by Khaldi et al (2010) andEl Hentati et al (2012) using RAPD markers.…”

Genetic relationships of the Cuban hair sheep inferred from microsatellite polymorphism

“…The program STRUCTURE (Pritchard et al, 2000) was also used to ascertain a possible cryptic genetic structure in the analysed dataset (Álvarez et al, 2004;Legaz et al, 2008). The most likely number of clusters K (populations or breeds) present in a dataset was approached as the mode of the K distribution (Evanno et al, 2005).…”

Association between body and udder morphological traits and dairy performance in Spanish Assaf sheep

“…The Assaf sheep breed was created in Israel by cross-breeding the East Friesian (Milchschaf) with the Awassi breed (Goot 1986). The breed was introduced in Spain mainly by the male-mediated absorption of Spanish native dairy sheep breeds mainly the Castellana, Churra, Manchega and also Latxa (Ugarte et al 2002, Legaz et al 2008. This absorption process was clarified at the genomic DNA level (Legaz et al 2008) and at the mitochondrial DNA level (Pedrosa et al 2007).…”

“…The breed was introduced in Spain mainly by the male-mediated absorption of Spanish native dairy sheep breeds mainly the Castellana, Churra, Manchega and also Latxa (Ugarte et al 2002, Legaz et al 2008. This absorption process was clarified at the genomic DNA level (Legaz et al 2008) and at the mitochondrial DNA level (Pedrosa et al 2007). It has also been demonstrated that today this breed can be considered as a unique compact and sufficiently homogenized population (Legaz et al 2011).…”

“…Given the high dairy performance, Spanish Assaf individuals are on high demand in other countries such as Greece, but information on the population is still scarce and is still being gathered (Gutiérrez et al 2007, Legaz et al 2008, Legaz et al 2011. Contributions to the characterization of local domestic animal populations are of major importance, given that the breed is the operation unit for the assessment of livestock diversity all over the world (Simon 1999, Duchev et al 2006.…”