title: Genetic diversity analysis of an  indigenous Chinese buffalo breed and hybrids based on microsatellite data.
abstract: Chinese  native buffaloes have faced the threat of extinction, along with an increase in  crossbreeding with domesticated river buffaloes; consequently, conservation of  local buffalo genetic resources has become a priority. A Chinese native breed,  Jianghan, is often crossed intentionally and unintentionally with imported  breeds from India and Pakistan, Murrah, and Nili-Ravi. A total of 128 buffaloes  of the breeds Jianghan, Murrah, and Nili-Ravi and their presumed hybrid  offspring were genotyped for 10 microsatellite markers. Heterozygosity and  Wright's F-statistics were calculated to determine the genetic variation in  those populations. The observed average heterozygosities ranged from 0.836  (Murrah) to 0.986 (Jianghan), higher than the expected heterozygosities and all  the inbreeding values within the populations were negative. The genetic  distances between the presumed hybrid buffaloes and the two imported river type  dairy buffalo breeds (Murrah and Nili-Ravi) were lower than with the native  Jianghan, indicating strong contributions of the imported breeds to this  presumed hybrid buffalo population. This information will be useful for the  development of rational breeding for the dairy buffalo industry and for  conservation strategies for the Jianghan buffalo.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, PR China.
authors.forename: W C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: K Q
authors.initials: KQ
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mei
authors.forename: W B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: L G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D001947:Breeding; D002020:Buffaloes / Q000235:genetics*; D002681:China; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D005787:Gene Frequency / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006579:Heterozygote; D006824:Hybridization, Genetic; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats / Q000235:genetics*; D010802:Phylogeny; D045483:Rivers; D018401:Sample Size; D013223:Statistics as Topic