Genetic diversity of Aoluguya Reindeer based on D-loop region of mtDNA and its conservation implications

Abstract

Aoluguya Reindeer is the only reindeer population in China. In recent years, habitat loss and inbreeding have led to population decline, and population growth has been slow, maintaining a thousand or so. To better protect the Aoluguya Reindeer and improve its fecundity, we have introduced reindeer from Finland, crossbreeding help us to reach this goal. However, it is lacking in the study of genetic diversity of reindeer in China and Finland. Therefore, we used the partial sequences of the D-loop region of mitochondrial DNA to analyze the genetic diversity of Chinese reindeer (Aoluguya Reindeer) and the introduced Finnish reindeer, and identified twenty-six haplotypes, including nineteen in China, five in Finland, and two in Russia. There is no shared haplotype among them. The nucleotide diversity of Aoluguya Reindeer is 0.00752, which is significantly lower than that of reindeer in Finland and other countries. The haplotype and phylogenetic analysis show that reindeer from different geographical origins are not clustered completely according to geographical distribution. Aoluguya Reindeer populations and the introduced reindeer herds from Finland are all closely related to the reindeer from Russia. AMOVA analysis showed that there was significant differentiation between reindeer populations in China and Finland, and mismatch analysis showed that both populations had not experienced expansion. In this study, we identified the genetic diversity of Aoluguya Reindeer and the introduced reindeer, and provided a scientific basis for the conservation and breeding of Aoluguya Reindeer resources.

Keywords: D-loop; Rangifer tarandus; mtDNA.