Ex situ and in situ data for endangered livestock breeds in Spain

Rafael De Oliveira Silva; Oscar Cortes Gardyn; Sipke-Joost Hiemstra; Joao G Oliveira Marques; Michèle Tixier-Boichard; Dominic Moran

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2021.106805

Ex situ and in situ data for endangered livestock breeds in Spain

Data Brief. 2021 Feb 4:35:106805. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2021.106805. eCollection 2021 Apr.

Authors

Rafael De Oliveira Silva¹, Oscar Cortes Gardyn², Sipke-Joost Hiemstra³, Joao G Oliveira Marques¹, Michèle Tixier-Boichard⁴, Dominic Moran¹

Affiliations

¹ Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Security, The University of Edinburgh, Easter Bush Campus, Midlothian, EH25 9RG Edinburgh, UK.
² Animal Science Department. Faculty of Veterinary, University Complutense of Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain.
³ Centre for Genetic Resources, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen Campus, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6700 AH Wageningen, The Netherlands.
⁴ University Paris-Saclay, INRAE, AgroParisTech, GABI, Jouy-en-Josas 78350, France.

Abstract

Improvements in ex situ storage of genetic and reproductive materials offer an alternative for endangered livestock breed conservation. This paper presents a dataset for current ex situ collections and in situ population for 179 Spanish livestock breeds of seven species, cattle, sheep, pig, chicken, goat, horse and donkey. Ex situ data was obtained via survey administered to 18 functioning gene banks in Spain and relates to the reproductive genetic materials (semen doses) of 210 livestock breeds distributed across the gene banks. In situ data combines CENSUS information with linear regression techniques and relates to the geographic distribution of 179 Spanish autochthonous livestock breeds (2009-2018), and in situ population projections and extinction probabilities (2019-2060). We use a decision variable defining an "acceptable level of risk" that allows decision makers to specify tolerable levels of in situ breed endangerment when taking ex situ collection and storage decisions.

Keywords: Animal genetic resources; Cryoconservation; Gene banks; In situ conservation.