Genetic variability in Colombian Creole cattle populations estimated by pedigree information

¹ Animal Genetic Resource Group, Research Center Tibaitatá, Km. 14 road to Mosquera Cundinamarca, Colombia
² Dpto. Producción Animal. Facultad de Veterinaria. Universidad Complutense. 28040 Madrid, Spain
³ Experimental Station El Nus, San Roque, Antioquia, Colombia
⁴ Research Center La Libertad, Villavicencio Meta, Colombia
⁵ Research Center Turipaná, Km 4 road to Cereté, Córdoba, Corporación colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria CORPOICA, Bogotá, Colombia

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jcanon{at}vet.ucm.es.

	Abstract

The genetic structure of four Colombian Creole cattle breeds, namely Costeño con Cuernos (CCC), Blanco Orejinegro (BON), Romosinuano (ROMO) and Sanmartinero (SM) was studied with the 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, which was rather important for the ROMO and SM breeds, with the lowest f_a/f_e ratio (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 two 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%), while the highest was attained by ROMO (1.22%). Finally, the percentage of individuals with inbreeding level higher than 6.25% in the reference population was high, indicating that the conservation management strategies can be improved in order to successfully maintain the genetic variability of these populations.

Key Words: Creole cattle, inbreeding, pedigree analysis