Detecting the existence of gene flow between Spanish and North African goats through a coalescent approach

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 38935
• Main Authors: Martínez, Amparo, Manunza, Arianna, Delgado, Juan Vicente, Landi, Vincenzo, Adebambo, Ayotunde, Ismaila, Muritala, Capote, Juan, El Ouni, Mabrouk, Elbeltagy, Ahmed, Abushady, Asmaa M., Galal, Salah, Ferrando, Ainhoa, Gómez, Mariano, Pons, Agueda, Badaoui, Bouabid, Jordana, Jordi, Vidal, Oriol, Amills, Marcel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 14.12.2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 45; 45/22; 45/29; 45/77; 631/181/457; 631/208/1348; Africa, Northern; Animal breeding; Animals; Breeding; Cabres; Caprinae; Cattle; Domestication; Estimates; Gene Flow; Genealogy; Genetic diversity; Genètica de poblacions; Goats; Goats - genetics; Humanities and Social Sciences; Microsatellites; Migration; Millora genètica; multidisciplinary; Neolithic; Population; Population genetics; Population structure; Samplers; Science; Sheep; Spain
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep38935

Human-driven migrations are one of the main processes shaping the genetic diversity and population structure of domestic species. However, their magnitude and direction have been rarely analysed in a statistical framework. We aimed to estimate the impact of migration on the population structure of Spanish and African goats. To achieve this goal, we analysed a dataset of 1,472 individuals typed with 23 microsatellites. Population structure of African and Spanish goats was moderate (mean F ST  = 0.07), with the exception of the Canarian and South African breeds that displayed a significant differentiation when compared to goats from North Africa and Nigeria. Measurement of gene flow with Migrate-n and IMa coalescent genealogy samplers supported the existence of a bidirectional gene flow between African and Spanish goats. Moreover, IMa estimates of the effective number of migrants were remarkably lower than those calculated with Migrate-n and classical approaches. Such discrepancies suggest that recent divergence, rather than extensive gene flow, is the main cause of the weak population structure observed in caprine breeds.