Preservation of Genetic Diversity of the Asian Native Goats

Using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), the relative importance of 10 subpopulations of Asian native goats in preserving genetic diversity was investigated. Analysis of prioritizing by removal of subpopulations identified the subpopulations of Mongolia (MGL), Myanmar (MYA), Cambodian plains (CAM_P), India (IND), and Philippine (PHI) as genetically important subpopulations because their removal resulted in a 6.38% reduction of expected heterozygosity. The removal of the remaining five subpopulations resulted in a 1.45% increase. Likewise, analysis using the core set method identified five subpopulations (MGL, MYA, CAM_P, IND, and PHI) as genetically important subpopulations. Among these five subpopulations, the IND was most important because of low molecular coancestry within itself and between the other subpopulations. The subpopulations of Cambodian mountainous (CAM_M) and Vietnam (VIE) were also considered to be important in this analysis. Based on these two investigations, we concluded that MGL, MYA, CAM_P, IND, and PHI are essential, and that CAM_M and VIE are worth preserving.