The assessment of contributions to diversity is informative on how allelic frequencies of a metapopulation are partitioned among subpopulations and is further useful to identify unique subpopulations gathering rare alleles. Up to 2,260 pig genotypes were used to assess contributions to gene diversity and allelic richness in a total of 98 local domestic pig subpopulations and 6 Cosmopolitan pig populations worldwide. Results suggest that allelic richness may be a key parameter for the characterization of genetic reservoirs for the diversity of the species. Unlike most American and European pig subpopulations, Asian pig subpopulations did not contribute favorably to allelic richness. Performance of SNP arrays may be worse than expected when applied to Asian pig samples and, therefore, the contributions to the diversity assessed can be severely biased.

Read the full article in the Journal of Animal Science.