Population Differentiation in Dromedarian Camel: A Comparative Study of Camel Inhabiting Extremes of Geographical Distribution

The camel has not been subject to selective pressures and is not differentiated. The present study was undertaken to evaluate differentiation of camels inhabiting the extreme geographical habitats for the species. In this paper we compared the camel populations of India and Southern region of Africa to adjudge the differentiation between the two populations. Utilizing 12 microsatellite loci it has been demonstrated that the populations i.e., of India and South Africa are very well differentiated. The camel population of India shows differentiation among themselves owing to selection pressure and breeding for specific economic traits/parameters like carting, baggage, riding etc. The differentiation among the two camel populations was 23% while that of among population, within the two groups was 11%. A small group of Bactrian camel exhibited closeness to hill camels. Based on the published literature and in the present study it is evident that there is a general trend of increased population differentiation from South region of Africa to Indian subcontinent with India having highly differentiated populations.