A Preliminary Population Genetics Analysis of Feral Goats from an Insular Environment

1. A Preliminary Population Genetics Analysis of Feral Goats from an Insular Environment Tomas Hrbek Yadira Ortiz

2. Capra aegagrus hircus • Goats have played a key role throughout human history • Most recent genetic and archeological evidence strongly supports the hypothesis that goats were domesticated in the Zagros Mountains and that domestication occurred 10,000 years before present • Goat were possibly the first animals to be domesticated

3. Capra aegagrus hircus • Subsequent to their domestication, goats have spread to other parts of Europe, Asia and Africa • Goats arrived with European colonists to the Americas beginning in the 16th century • In many places goats were purposely set loose to form feral populations

4. Feral Goat dilemma • Feral goats have a tendency to heavily and negatively impact native vegetation • They have caused the extinction of native vegetation • They have caused the extinction of native animals

5. Feral Goat dilemma

6. Feral Goat dilemma • On the other hand, feral goats are often derived from European breeds which no longer exist in Europe • Feral goats are also adapted to a new set of often extreme environmental conditions • Feral goats in insular environments are also subject to genetic bottlenecks and inbreeding

7. Feral Goat dilemma • Being an invasive species on one hand, and a reservoir of potentially useful genic variation that can be used for commercial stock improvement

8. Mona Island

9. Mona Island • Mona Island is an uplifted carbonate plateau that lies halfway between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola • Mona Island is made of Miocene to Pliocene shallow water carbonates and is fringed on its western and southern sides by Pleistocene reef terraces • Mona Island is a stressful xeric environment

10. Mona Island Goats • What is the neutral genetic diversity and adaptive genetic variation in feral Mona goats compared with unimproved and improve breeds in Europe and Africa? • How does individual genetic diversity correlate between neutral and selected loci? • What are the origins of the feral Mona goats?

11. Mona Island Goat characterization • 41 individuals of goat genotyped for 19 microsatellite markers • 7 markers are monomorphic • Miminum number of alleles was 2 • Maximum number of alleles was 5 (locus CSMM66) • Observed heterozygosity was 0.372

12. Comparisons • There are a number of published studies investigating population genetic parameters in goats, and the relationships of goat breeds or land races • These studies are mainly the result of the European Union funded Econogene project

13. Comparisons • Luikart et al. (1999): • 22 markers from 4 distinct populations • Spanish Murciana-Grenadina population (32 individuals) is polymorphic at all 22 loci, and heterozygosity is 0.570

14. Comparisons • Ouafi et al. (2002): • 5 markers from 8 distinct populations from two localized breeds of Morocco and the Pyrenees, and cosmopolitan Alpine breeds • All markers are polymorphic in the 6335 individuals analyzed and heterozygosity varied between 0.630 to 0.729

15. Comparisons • Serrano et al. (2009): • 10 markers from 20 subpopulations of the threatened Spanish Guadarrama goats • All markers are polymorphic in the 6335 individuals analyzed and heterozygosity varied between 0.587 and 0.744

16. Conclusions • In general Mona goats have very low heterozygosities and gene diversities • Many loci area also monomorphic • The Mona Island goats are highly inbred with respect to European and North African goat breeds

17. Future Prospects • Mona Island goats will be sampled in January 2010 • We are now in the process of developing a screen for MHC II complex • We are in the process of developing microsatellite and MHC II complex markers for Mona Island pigs • Geographic structure and demographic analyses planned