Genetic diversity and population structure in Albanian local sheep breeds analyzed by microsatellite markers

Sheep are considered as an important livestock species in Albania. The genetic structure and relationships among 3 autochthonous sheep breeds have been inferred from 31 DNA microsatellite loci using F-statistics. The study carried out in the frame of the ECONOGENE project, contributes to the investigation of genetic diversity estimate in three autochthonous Albanian sheep breeds “Bardhoka”, “Ruda” and ”Shkodrane”. A total of 93 animals were investigated and 355 microsatellite alleles were found. The level of apparent breed differentiation is low and multilocus FST values indicate that only around 1.11% of the total genetic variation is explained by the between breeds component, while the remaining 98.89% by differences among individuals within breeds. This deficit is of 5.16% (p 0.001) in the whole population. It was carried out a direct assignment of individuals and an exclusion analysisbased on 10 000 simulated individuals. The number of inferred populations was K = 2 for microsatellite markers. Population structure analysis revealed a high level of admixture between populations. Several reasons for the breed admixture are presented. A breeding strategy and policy has to be started in order to conserve valuable sheep breeds