Skip to content
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Menu
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Menu
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
Genetic diversity in four populations of Nguni (Zulu) sheep assessed by microsatellite analysis
Italian Journal of Animal Science, Volume 13, No. 1, Article 3083, Year 2014
Notification
URL copied to clipboard!
Description
Zulu sheep are found mainly in the rural KwaZulu-Natal province and the numbers are declining due to indiscriminate inbreeding. There is thus a need for phenotypic and genetic characterisation as a first phase for planning conservation strategies. Zulu sheep populations sampled were from Makhathini research station (MS) (n=33), University of Zululand (UZ) (n=21), a community at KwaMthethwa (KM) (n=32) and from Msinga (EM) (n=33). One European breed Appen - ninica (AP) was used as out group. Microsatellite analysis using 29 microsatellite loci was used in this study. Among the Zulu sheep, the mean number of alleles per locus was the lowest (3.86) in UZ and the highest (6.24) was realised in EM. The mean values of observed and expected heterozygosity were 0.57 and 0.61, respectively. Neighbour-joining tree showed two main Zulu sheep clusters: the UZ, KM and MS sheep populations clustered together and the second cluster included only representatives from the EM population. The STRUCTURE analysis showed that KM, AP and EM were founded in separate clusters, whereas UZ and MS clustered together. The study demonstrated that there was a common origin of the population from the research stations (MS and UZ populations). It also demonstrated that the EM had a different history for the other three populations. This work suggests that exchange of rams could be useful in reducing inbreeding when considering conservation breeding programmes. © N.W. Kunene et al., 2014.
Authors & Co-Authors
Kunene, Nokuthula Winfred
South Africa, Ulundi
University of Zululand
Ceccobelli, Simone
Italy, Perugia
Università Degli Studi Di Perugia
Di Lorenzo, Piera
Italy, Perugia
Università Degli Studi Di Perugia
Hlophe, Sambulo R.
South Africa, Ulundi
University of Zululand
Bezuidenhout, Carlos C.
South Africa, Potchefstroom
North-west University
Lasagna, Emiliano
Italy, Perugia
Università Degli Studi Di Perugia
Statistics
Citations: 19
Authors: 6
Affiliations: 3
Identifiers
Doi:
10.4081/ijas.2014.3083
ISSN:
15944077
Research Areas
Genetics And Genomics
Study Design
Cross Sectional Study