Genetic diversity of Afrikaner cattle in southern Africa

The Afrikaner is an indigenous South African breed of “Sanga” type beef cattle along with breeds such as the Drakensberger and Nguni. Six composite breeds have been developed from crosses with the Afrikaner. Additionally, Afrikaner has been the base from which exotic breeds were established in South...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Tropical animal health and production 2018-02, Vol.50 (2), p.399-404
Main Authors: Pienaar, Lené, Grobler, J. Paul, Scholtz, Michiel M., Swart, Hannelize, Ehlers, Karen, Marx, Munro, MacNeil, Michael D., Neser, Frederick W. C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Bayesian analysis
Beef cattle
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Bovidae
Cattle
Clustering
Genetic diversity
Genetic markers
Genotyping
Heterozygosity
Inbreeding
Life Sciences
Loci
Markers
Microsatellites
Regular Articles
Veterinary Medicine/Veterinary Science
Zoology
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Summary:The Afrikaner is an indigenous South African breed of “Sanga” type beef cattle along with breeds such as the Drakensberger and Nguni. Six composite breeds have been developed from crosses with the Afrikaner. Additionally, Afrikaner has been the base from which exotic breeds were established in South Africa through backcrossing. The study examined genetic diversity of Afrikaner cattle by genotyping 1257 animals from 27 herds in different geographic areas of South Africa and Namibia using 11 microsatellite markers. Multiple-locus assignment, performed using the Bayesian clustering algorithm of STRUCTURE, revealed three underlying genotypic groups. These groups were not geographically localized. Across herds and markers, the proportion of unbiased heterozygosity ranged from 0.49 to 0.72 averaging 0.57; mean number of alleles per locus ranged from 3.18 to 7.09, averaging 4.81; and allelic richness ranged from 2.35 to 3.38, averaging 2.67. It is concluded that a low inbreeding level of 2.7% and a moderate to high degree of variation still persists within the Afrikaner cattle breed, despite the recent decline in numbers of animals.
ISSN:0049-4747
1573-7438
DOI:10.1007/s11250-017-1447-9