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Genetic variability in Colombian Creole cattle populations estimated by pedigree information¹

R. A. Martínez^*, D. García, J. L. Gallego, G. Onofre, J. Pérez^# and J. Cañón^,2

^* Animal Genetic Resource Group, Research Center Tibaitatá, Km. 14 Road to Mosquera Cundinamarca, Colombia; and Departamento de Producción Animal, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad Complutense, 28040 Madrid, Spain; and Experimental Station El Nus, San Roque, Antioquia, Colombia; and Research Center La Libertad, Villavicencio Meta, Colombia; and and ^# Research Center Turipaná, Km 4 Road to Cereté, Córdoba, Corporación colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria Corpoica, Bogotá, Colombia

² Corresponding author: jcanon{at}vet.ucm.es

The genetic structure of 4 Colombian Creole cattle breeds, namely, Costeño con Cuernos, Blanco Orejinegro (BON), Romosinuano (ROMO), and Sanmartinero (SM), was studied with an analysis of the available pedigree data. The comparison between the effective number of founders (f_e) and the effective number of ancestors (f_a) revealed a decrease in the genetic variation that was rather important for the ROMO and San Martinero breeds, which had the lowest f_a/f_e ratios (0.34 and 0.53, respectively). All breeds showed similar values for the number of equivalent generations traced, ranging from 3.1 in BON to 4.8 in ROMO. These 2 populations also had the lowest and the highest population sizes, respectively. The lowest average inbreeding coefficient considering the whole pedigree was obtained by BON (0.18%), whereas the highest was attained by ROMO (1.22%). Finally, the percentage of individuals with an inbreeding level greater than 6.25% in the reference population was high, indicating that the existing conservation management strategies could be improved to successfully maintain the genetic variability of these populations.

Key Words: Creole cattle • inbreeding • pedigree analysis