Insights into the genetic diversity of indigenous goats and their conservation priorities.

Objective: An experiment was conducted to evaluate genetic diversity of 26 Chinese indigenous goats by 30 microsatellite markers, and then to define conservation priorities to set up the protection programs according to the weight given to within- and between-breed genetic diversity.

Methods: Twenty-six representative populations of Chinese indigenous goats, 1351 total, were sampled from different geographic regions of China. Within-breed genetic diversity and marker polymorphism were estimated calculating the mean number of alleles (MNA), observed heterozygosities (HO), expected heterozygosities (He), fixation index (FIS), effective number of alleles (NE) and allelic richness (Rt).