Genetic Diversity And Genetic Structure Of Chinese Blue Sheep(Pseudois Nayaur)

Blue Sheep (Pseudois nayaur) is listed as a vulnerable species in China Red Data Book of Endangered Animals, with important ecological and economic values. In this study124tissue samples be collected and be divided into six populations:the Helan Mountain, Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Tibet, according to their geographical location. Twelve microsatellite loci were used to investigate genetic diversity, genetic structure and variation level of the groups. Allele frequency, effective allele number, heterozygosity, polymorphism information contents, genetic differentiation coefficient(FST) and gene flow(NM) were calculated, NJ phylogenetic trees was constructed based on Nei’s DA genetic distance. The genetic structure was further estimated using analysis of Bayesian analysis by STRUCTURE program. Some major results were as follows:1. A total of183alleles were observed in12Polymorphism microsatellite loci. The number of allele per locus ranged from7to22with an average of15.25, and the average of effective allele number was7.20, mean PIC was0.57. The Ho of these loci ranged from0.37to0.80(average=0.60) and HE ranged from0.76to0.91(average=0.86).2. Results of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium tests showed that loci SRCRSP3、LSCV36、 INRABERN18、OarFCB304、LSCV116and ETH10were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (P>0.05) in entirely or most populations; Loci TCRVB6presented deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in three populations; besides, the other five loci presented deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium only in one population. In our study, the deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium of these loci might relate to the number of samples in each population and the presence of null alleles.3. According to pair-wise FST, we could see that genetic differentiation between populations were significant; and the average population genetic differentiation of Helan Mountain population coefficient other five populations was0.37, it’s larger than the mean value(0.20) of genetic differentiation between Tibetan population and other populations, which support the Helan Mountain population as the third subspecies of blue sheep.