GENETIC DIVERSITY IN CZECH HAFLINGER HORSES

Abstract

The Haflinger as a small moutain horse breed originated from the South Tyrol district as a cross of Alpen Mountain breeds with Araber. This breed was expanding to Czech Republic during the last 25 years. The aim of this study was to analyse genetic diversity within the population using microsatellite markers. A total of 95 alleles have been detected. The highest frequency 88.18% showed allele 101 (HTG 6). The heterosigosity varied from 0.25 (HTG 6) to 0.84 (VHL 20), genetic diversity reached 0.6–0.8. The heterozygosity of the whole population studied is FIS= -0.013. The average effective number of allele per locus was 2.93 with standard deviation 1.54, with minimal and maximal level 1.30 and 7.83, respectively. Average polymorphism information content per locus was 0.608 with standard derivation 0.146, with minimal and maximal level 0.208 and 0.824, respectively. The results showed that breeding program of Czech Haflinger is optimal, including optimized mating strategies. The diversity of the population Czech Haflinger, based on a small number of microsatellites, seems to be sufficient.

Keywords

• microsatellite data
• homozygosity by loci
• genetic diversity