STUDY OF GENETIC DIVERSITY OF BÍSARO PIGS BREED BY PEDIGREE ANALYSIS

S.D. Fernandes, S. Malovrh, M. Kovac, V.A.P. Cadavez

Abstract
The objective of this work was to study the genetic diversity of the Portuguese autochthonous pig breed Bísaro by pedigree analysis. Data of Bísaro pigs breed was taken from the database of the National Breeders (Association Associação Nacional de Criadores de Suínos de Raça Bísaro - ANCSUB) concerning the period from 1997 to 2008. For both, pedigree and active population files completeness was evaluated. The number and the proportion of animals with both parents known, sire known, and dam known were computed using the SQL procedure. Population genetic diversity parameters were computed, using the PEDIG software package, for the active population which included animals born from 2003 to 2008. The effective number of founders was 78.8 for boars and 79.7 for sows, while the number of ancestors contributed with 50% of the genes in the breed pool gene was 24 for boars and 23 for sows. A high proportion (52.4%) of animals in the active population are inbred, and 43.9% of the inbreed animals presented inbreeding coefficient higher than 20%. These results suggest that genetic variability needs monitoring in order to avoid the losses of genes in the Bísaro pigs.

Key words: Demographic structure, Inbreeding, Probability of gene origin