Journal of Animal Breeding and Genomics (J Anim Breed Genom)
Indexed in KCI
OPEN ACCESS, PEER REVIEWED
pISSN 1226-5543
eISSN 2586-4297
Review

A review of population genetics research on domestic animals in Mongolia and recommendations for the improvements

1Division of Animal & Dairy Science, Chungnam National University
2Division of Research and Promotion, National Science Museum of Korea
3 Department of Biology, Mongolian National University of Education, Mongolia

Correspondence to Jun Heon Lee, E-mail: junheon@cnu.ac.kr

Volume 2, Number 1, Pages 9-20, March 2018.
Journal of Animal Breeding and Genomics 2018, 2(1), 9-20. https://doi.org/10.12972/jabng.20180016
Received on 6 February, 2018, Revised on 27 March, 2018,  Accepted on 27 March, 2018, Published on March 31, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 Korean Society of Animal Breeding and Genetics.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0).

ABSTRACT

We conducted this review to evaluate and summarize the current status of population genetic research on the domestic animals in Mongolia. Mongolia has a long history of domestic animals breeding across its vast territory. Mongolia’s system of pastoral herding consists of five kinds of domestic animals and dates back more than 3,000 years. According to statistic report from government in 2017, Mongolia supported and estimated 61.5 million head of goats, sheep, cattle, horses and camels. Most previous population genetic studies focused on the domestic Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus) species which is rapidly declining across its range. In this study, four studies examined for Mongolian horse (Equus f. caballus) populations, while just one or two studies looked into domestic sheep, goat and cattle. This review demonstrates a need for additional research into the population genetics of Mongolian sheep, goat and cattle. Therefore, we are planning to perform population genetic studies for native sheep, goats and cattle in Mongolia.

KEYWORDS

Domestic animals, population genetics, genetic diversity

Section