Abstract

Mithun or gayal (Bos frontalis) is endemic to the Gaoligongshan Mountains and Drung River Basin in Yunnan, China; a rare and endangered Bos species. To evaluate the genetic diversity and bottleneck effect of Yunnan mithun population, we screened 16 bovine microsatellite loci of Yunnan mithun (N = 34) to provide genetic information for its conservation strategies and breeding programmes. A total of 126 microsatellite alleles and large allele size variance were detected. All loci displayed low genetic diversity with overall mean of Na = 7.88, polymorphism information content (PIC) = 0.60, and H_E = 0.63, which were the lowest among the beef cattle breeds. Despite the smaller population size, the normal L-shaped distribution of allelic frequencies without any mode-shift  indicate the absence of genetic bottleneck in Yunnan mithun population, suggesting that Yunnan mithun population might moderately have underwent gene introgression from zebu and yellow cattle.

Key words: Yunnan mithun (Bos frontalis), genetic diversity, bottleneck effect, microsatellite loci.