Genetic assessment of funding population of wild sheep (Ovis orientalis) in Chadegan captive breeding site

Document Type : Genetic

Authors

1 Department of Natural Resources, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan 84156-83111, Iran

2 Department of Natural Resources, Tehran University, Tehran, 4111, Iran

Abstract

Captive breeding is conducted to increase the populations of a species and to re-introduce them to the wild, it is also of importance for species conservation. Here, we aimed to assess the taxonomic status and genetic diversity of the sheep population in Chadegan recreation village, using a fragment of 688 base pairs of Cytochrome b gene. Results showed that the captive bred population of Chadegan recreation village belonged to O.vignei and the subspecies of O.vignei laristanica. Three new haplotypes were identified in the current study and added to the previous 67 haplotypes, which show a relatively high genetic variation in the Chadegan population. The genetic divergence within and between O.vignei, O. orientalis, O. canadensis and O. ammon was calculated using K2P method. Minimum and maximum intra-specific genetic distance within O. vignei were obtained from 0.013 to 0.015 while the inter-specific genetic distance between O. vignei and O. canadensis ranged from 0.086 to 0.088 and the distance between O. vignei and O. orientalis varied from 0.021 to 0.24. The lowest intra-species genetic distance was observed between subspecies of O. canadensis and O. orientalis while the maximum value was obtained in O. vignei subspecies. Considering the genetic distances that exist between the subspecies, transferring individuals between populations should be performed with adequate care to preserve the intra-specific diversity of wild sheep.

Keywords

Journal of Animal Environment
Volume 9, Issue 3
September 2017
Pages 41-48

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics