Genomic diversity level and relationship of selected European indigenous sheep breeds

Abstract

Through history, wars, famines, climatic events, and diseases have led to mass death of animals. To replenish this numbers, it was necessary that new animals were brough in from other places leading to the wide variety of breeds we see today. Sheep have been effectively adapted to a variety of habitats and to the specialized production through animal husbandry and directed mating. It is anticipated that selection will change the target population's allele frequencies for the functional mutations and any nearby SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism). As a result, the genetic study of sheep traits contributes to our understanding of biological processes in mammalian species as well as other species. The aim of this thesis is to understand the genetic relationship between selected European native sheep breeds from the analysis of medium density, genome wide SNPs markers.