Genetic distances among dog breeds

Bc. Petr Matějů

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Dogs are the first domesticated animals and they accompanied people from the era of hunters and gatherers. However, modern dog breeds are usually not older than 200 years. Genomic studies revealed relationships and history of many of those breeds. Aim of this study was to differentiate each breed according to the genotypic data and to assign each breed into its private cluster. We used combination of 27 nuclear microsatellite markers. We separated the dog breeds into nine groups according to latest genomic studies. Our markers and analytical methods provided comparable clustering resolution as known from the published studies. Moreover, we were able to observe genetic differentiation that was not discovered before. New structures were found in varieties of German Pointers, Dutch Shepherds, Collies and Weimaraners. Our findings uncover structure in Dachshunds with origin in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Our data indicate that the origin of Polish Greyhound is not as ancient as it is believed. Between breeds with high gene flow no structure was found. Two clustering programs Snapclust and STRUCTURE were compared. Snapclust performed faster and better in smaller datasets. STRUCTURE outperformed Snapclust in larger datasets of more closely related breeds.

Keywords

Dog, Breed assignment, microsatellite, genetic distance

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 26. 4. 2019

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Mgr. Barbora Černá Bolfíková, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Master programme / field:
Tropical Agriculture / Animal and Food Sciences in Tropics and Subtropics