Genetic diversity of three buffalo populations of the Mediterranean area: Italian, Greek and Egyptian, was estimated on the basis of allele frequencies at 13 polymorphic microsatellite loci: CSSM33, CSSM36, CSSM38, CSSM43, CSSM47, CSSM60, CSSM70, BMC1013, DRB3, ETH03, ETH121, ILST005 and RM099. The number of detected alleles per locus varied from two (ILST005) to 19 (ETH03). Major differences in the three populations were found at loci BMC1013, DRB3, CSSM47, CSSM60 and CSSM70, while, at the other loci, allele frequency distribution was similar in the three national samples, which have the same alleles at the highest frequency. Average gene diversity over all loci was 0.624. Across-loci average gene diversity increased with the number of alleles. Observed average heterozygosity was 0.135, 0.151 and 0.158 in the Italian, Greek and Egyptian populations, respectively. The degree of differentiation between the Italian and Greek buffaloes was 0.031 ± 0.015; differentiation between the Egyptian and each of the other two populations was 0.070 ± 0.020. Estimation of distance by isolation among geographical areas, within population, gave indication that inbreeding rates calculated on the basis of 13 microsatellites describe well the geographical distribution of the three populations. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
