Diversidad genética aplicada al manejo y conservación de poblaciones de llamas

BUSTAMANTE A.; MATÉ M.L.; LAMAS H.; VIDAL-RIOJA L.

Mejoramiento genético y reproducción en Camélidos Sudamericanos

Miragaya-Olivera-Puig (Editores)

Año: 2006; p. 11 - 16

Argentina possesses 405% of the world population of llamas, being the Argentine Northwest (NOA) the zone of greater density. The main objective of the llamas breeding is the fiber production. The loss of genetic diversity prevents the improvement of species with productive interest. Because of it, in programs of  conservation and management is necessary to know the population genetic variability. With the purpose to know it and therefore the kind of management that should be implemented, 14 loci of DNA microsatelite in 77 llamas of three troops of the NOA were analyzed. The results showed, levels of relatively high genetic variability with Medium Number of Alleles of 7.17, and expected and observed heterozygosity of 0.71 and 0.52 respectively. The excess of homozygotes found, indicates that the domestic populations conserve the reproductive and social behavior of the wild ones. The genetic differentiation among populations is moderate (p<0.05). Nevertheless, although introgression of alleles in the populations because of the incorporation of foreign males, there is not genetic flow at present. The obtained data would advise to carry out a management that conserve the own characteristics of each population, but incorporating animals with similar characteristics from other troops. Besides, genealogical registrations should be established in order to design matings between individuals with private alleles. These guidelines would permit to retain the maximum genetic variability minimizing the effects of the gene drift and the consanguinity.