Abstract:
A study was conducted to understand molecular genetic characteristics of village pigs and wild
boar populations using microsatellite markers.Atotal of 15 microsatellite markers recommended
by FAO/ISAG (Food and Agriculture organization/International Society for Animal Genetics)
were employed in this molecular investigation.Among 15 microsatellite loci 11 were polymorphic
and rests were monomorphic. The total observed number of alleles per locus varied from 2 to 4 in
all the populations. The mean effective number of alleles for 15 loci in wild boar, village pigs and
exotic types were 2±0.38, 2±0.53 and 1.73±0.59 respectively. The observed heterozygosity value
was higher in village pigs (0.72±0.02) than that in other pig populations used in this study indicated
that the village pig population of Sri Lanka showed a high genetic diversity compared to the other
pig populations including exotic pigs and wild boar in Sri Lanka.
The phylogenetic tree was constructed using 1000 bootstrap values for the individuals in
populations of village pig and wild boar indicated that there was a high genetic variation among
individuals in both village pig and wild boar populations. The clustering pattern of phylogenetic
consensus tree further revealed that there were unique group of wild boar and village pigs.
However, the result of this study showed that the village pigs in certain geographic areas of the
country has closer genetic relationship with wild boars. This observation could be very well
confirmed by the breeding practice of village pigs in those areas of the country. And also on the
basis of these results, it is evidenced that both village pigs and wild boar need equal attention in
conservation attempts. However, it is advisable to expand the comparison with other native pig
types of the region before coming to conclusion on conservation program.
