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Title: Impact of genetic drift on developing access and benefit sharing guidelines under the Nagoya Protocol: The case of Meishan pigs imported into the US

Author
item Blackburn, Harvey
item PLANTE, Y - Agriculture And Agri-Food Canada
item WELCH, E - University Of Illinois
item Rohrer, Gary
item PAIVA, S - Embrapa

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/8/2013
Publication Date: 7/8/2013
Citation: Blackburn, H.D., Plante, Y., Welch, E.W., Rohrer, G.A., Paiva, S.R. 2013. Impact of genetic drift on developing access and benefit sharing guidelines under the Nagoya Protocol: The case of Meishan pigs imported into the US. Meeting Abstract. American Society of Animal Science, Indianapolis, IN, July 8-12, 2013.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The Convention on Biological Diversity developed the Nagoya Protocol (NP) on access and benefit sharing (ABS) for international exchange of genetic resources across life forms. Concerns are NP will be cumbersome, stifle research, and not accommodate diverse life forms, such as livestock. NP was developed without evaluating sectoral exchange practices or genetic change among imported populations. This study evaluated how allele frequencies of an imported population changed over time and how those results may impact ABS formulation under the NP. Therefore, 35 microsatellites were used to evaluate the impact of genetic drift (GD) on Meishan pigs. Samples included Meishan from: China (M-China, 22 hd; samples originally imported in the 1980s) and US (M-US, 42 hd). The M-US was subdivided by herd of origin; US Meat Animal Research Center (M-MARC, 18 hd) and Iowa State University (M-ISU, 24 hd). Both herds were maintained for ~8 generations as randomly bred controls. Meishan-US, M-MARC and M-ISU were compared to M-China throughout the analysis. Measures of genetic diversity and GD were computed with GENALEX and TempoFs genetic software. Across markers TempoFs analysis showed a mean shift in allele frequency of 0.11(se = 0.019) due to GD for M-US vs M-China. Evaluating M-MARC and M-ISU the mean and standard error allele frequency shifts due to GD were 0.169 (0.034) and 0.214 (0.036), respectively. Principal coordinate analysis confirmed separation of M-US, M-MARC, M-ISU from M-China. The results suggest that among M-US populations substantial changes in allele frequency due to GD occurred in a relatively short span of time. If GD is coupled with directional selection differences between founder animals and subsequent generations would increase at a faster rate. Therefore, these results suggest that ABS formulation under NP should not include multi-year royalties or so called “reach through rights”. It is proposed that current genetic exchange practices of the livestock sector, i.e., private contracts; continue to be the basis for livestock genetic resource exchange.