Molecular Genetics and Selection in Dairy Buffaloes: The Italian Situation

The swamp and the river type constitute two distinct clades of buffaloes. A long period of isolation and the lack of crossbreeding allowed an evident morpho-functional differentiation of the Mediterranean river type, whose population has increased 19 fold in Italy in the past fifty years. This increase lies in the growing interest in the productive characteristics of this rustic animal, actually breed mainly as dairy purpose animal. Marker assisted selection may represent a possible option for designing a suitable breeding scheme for Italian river buffaloes. Gene polymorphisms significantly associated to milk production traits may provide useful indications for identifying selection candidates with high genetic merit. The literature associated with different aspects of the genetic progress of buffalo is abundant, this chapter is a review of a part of publications dealing with the molecular bases for the improvement of the quali-quantitative characteristics of the Italian dairy buffaloes mainly during the last decade.

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