GeneticDiversity of Wild Boarand Villege Pigs in Sri Lanka

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.