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Gene dropping analysis of founder contributions in a closed Japanese black cattle population
Author(s) -
HONDA Takeshi,
NOMURA Tetsuro,
FUKUSHIMA Moriyuki,
MUKAI Fumio
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
animal science journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.606
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1740-0929
pISSN - 1344-3941
DOI - 10.1046/j.1344-3941.2002.00016.x
Subject(s) - allele , mendelian inheritance , population , biology , genetics , founder effect , extinction (optical mineralogy) , genetic diversity , evolutionary biology , allele frequency , gene pool , gene , demography , haplotype , sociology , paleontology
Gene dropping simulation was applied to Japanese Black cattle population in Hyogo prefecture, to examine the survivals of alleles originated from founder animals. In the analysis, unique alleles were assigned to founders, and the genotypes of all descendants along the actual pedigree were generated through Monte Carlo simulation following Mendelian segregation rules. By replicating this process 10 000 times, the distribution of frequencies of alleles from each founder was estimated. From the distribution, several quantities useful for the management of genetic diversity, such as the probability of allele extinction and the probability of alleles surviving at a critically low frequency were derived. The materials used were 68 781 animals born in 1955–1998 and their pedigree records traced back to the population in 1937 or before. The expected number of alleles retained in the population drastically decreased during the analyzed period, and reached to 57.9 in the population of 1998, which was only 3.3% of the total number of alleles assigned to founders. Detailed analysis of major founders with relatively high genetic contributions to the current population revealed that alleles from most of the major founders are now at high risk of future extinction. These results strongly suggest that for the management of genetic diversity, the genetic contributions of founders are not fully informative, and emphasize the importance of the detection of live animals having founder alleles with high extinction possibilities.