Cargando…
Banat donkey, a neglected donkey breed from the central Balkans (Serbia)
The dominant donkey breed in the Balkans is the mid-sized Balkan donkey with a grey to chocolate coat color. Local breeders from Serbia, however, still maintain a few larger individuals of a lighter coat color, named Banat donkey, and speculate that they are descendants of a Spanish donkey heard tha...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2020
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7059758/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32175186 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8598 |
_version_ | 1783504114912591872 |
---|---|
author | Stanisic, Ljubodrag Aleksić, Jelena M. Dimitrijevic, Vladimir Kovačević, Branislav Stevanovic, Jevrosima Stanimirovic, Zoran |
author_facet | Stanisic, Ljubodrag Aleksić, Jelena M. Dimitrijevic, Vladimir Kovačević, Branislav Stevanovic, Jevrosima Stanimirovic, Zoran |
author_sort | Stanisic, Ljubodrag |
collection | PubMed |
description | The dominant donkey breed in the Balkans is the mid-sized Balkan donkey with a grey to chocolate coat color. Local breeders from Serbia, however, still maintain a few larger individuals of a lighter coat color, named Banat donkey, and speculate that they are descendants of a Spanish donkey heard that had been transferred to the Banat region by the Hapsburg Queen Maria Theresa in the XVIII century for a specific purpose, to work in local vineyards. We have previously found a unique nuclear gene-pool and a prevalence of mitochondrial Clade 2 haplotypes in several such animals. In this study, we: (i) perform a comparative analysis of 18 morphological traits of the Banat donkey (seven individuals), Balkan donkey (53 individuals from two sub-populations of this breed) and the potential hybrids (eight individuals), and demonstrate the morphological distinctiveness of the Banat donkey, highlighting the diagnostic traits for distinguishing the breed: hip height, croup width, body length and chest depth; (ii) re-analyse published nuclear microsatellite data for these groups, and reveal that, although severely depopulated, the genetically distinct Banat donkey is not severely affected by the loss of genetic diversity and inbreeding; (iii) demonstrate that previously published Banat donkey mitochondrial haplotypes, analyzed genealogically together with those reported in ancient and modern individuals from Spain, Italy, Turkey, Cyprus and Africa, are shared with three Spanish breeds and individuals belonging to Amiata and some other Italian breeds. A unique morphological feature present in Banat and Somali wild donkeys, but also in Amiata donkeys, black stripes on legs, suggests that the origin of Clade 2 donkeys may be much more complex than previously thought. Actions to preserve the Banat donkey, a valuable but critically endangered genetic resource (<100 individuals), are urgent. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7059758 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-70597582020-03-13 Banat donkey, a neglected donkey breed from the central Balkans (Serbia) Stanisic, Ljubodrag Aleksić, Jelena M. Dimitrijevic, Vladimir Kovačević, Branislav Stevanovic, Jevrosima Stanimirovic, Zoran PeerJ Biodiversity The dominant donkey breed in the Balkans is the mid-sized Balkan donkey with a grey to chocolate coat color. Local breeders from Serbia, however, still maintain a few larger individuals of a lighter coat color, named Banat donkey, and speculate that they are descendants of a Spanish donkey heard that had been transferred to the Banat region by the Hapsburg Queen Maria Theresa in the XVIII century for a specific purpose, to work in local vineyards. We have previously found a unique nuclear gene-pool and a prevalence of mitochondrial Clade 2 haplotypes in several such animals. In this study, we: (i) perform a comparative analysis of 18 morphological traits of the Banat donkey (seven individuals), Balkan donkey (53 individuals from two sub-populations of this breed) and the potential hybrids (eight individuals), and demonstrate the morphological distinctiveness of the Banat donkey, highlighting the diagnostic traits for distinguishing the breed: hip height, croup width, body length and chest depth; (ii) re-analyse published nuclear microsatellite data for these groups, and reveal that, although severely depopulated, the genetically distinct Banat donkey is not severely affected by the loss of genetic diversity and inbreeding; (iii) demonstrate that previously published Banat donkey mitochondrial haplotypes, analyzed genealogically together with those reported in ancient and modern individuals from Spain, Italy, Turkey, Cyprus and Africa, are shared with three Spanish breeds and individuals belonging to Amiata and some other Italian breeds. A unique morphological feature present in Banat and Somali wild donkeys, but also in Amiata donkeys, black stripes on legs, suggests that the origin of Clade 2 donkeys may be much more complex than previously thought. Actions to preserve the Banat donkey, a valuable but critically endangered genetic resource (<100 individuals), are urgent. PeerJ Inc. 2020-03-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7059758/ /pubmed/32175186 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8598 Text en ©2020 Stanisic et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Biodiversity Stanisic, Ljubodrag Aleksić, Jelena M. Dimitrijevic, Vladimir Kovačević, Branislav Stevanovic, Jevrosima Stanimirovic, Zoran Banat donkey, a neglected donkey breed from the central Balkans (Serbia) |
title | Banat donkey, a neglected donkey breed from the central Balkans (Serbia) |
title_full | Banat donkey, a neglected donkey breed from the central Balkans (Serbia) |
title_fullStr | Banat donkey, a neglected donkey breed from the central Balkans (Serbia) |
title_full_unstemmed | Banat donkey, a neglected donkey breed from the central Balkans (Serbia) |
title_short | Banat donkey, a neglected donkey breed from the central Balkans (Serbia) |
title_sort | banat donkey, a neglected donkey breed from the central balkans (serbia) |
topic | Biodiversity |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7059758/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32175186 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8598 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT stanisicljubodrag banatdonkeyaneglecteddonkeybreedfromthecentralbalkansserbia AT aleksicjelenam banatdonkeyaneglecteddonkeybreedfromthecentralbalkansserbia AT dimitrijevicvladimir banatdonkeyaneglecteddonkeybreedfromthecentralbalkansserbia AT kovacevicbranislav banatdonkeyaneglecteddonkeybreedfromthecentralbalkansserbia AT stevanovicjevrosima banatdonkeyaneglecteddonkeybreedfromthecentralbalkansserbia AT stanimiroviczoran banatdonkeyaneglecteddonkeybreedfromthecentralbalkansserbia |