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. 2007 Oct 4:7:186.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2148-7-186.

Phylogeography and domestication of Indian river buffalo

Satish Kumar  1 , Muniyandi Nagarajan, Jasmeet S Sandhu, Niraj Kumar, Vandana Behl
Affiliations

Phylogeography and domestication of Indian river buffalo

Satish Kumar et al. BMC Evol Biol. .

Abstract

Background: The water buffalo- Bubalus bubalis holds tremendous potential in livestock sector in many Asian countries, particularly India. The origin, domestication and genetic structure of the Indian river buffalo are poorly understood. Therefore, to understand the relationship among the maternal lineages of Indian river buffalo breeds and their domestication process, we analysed mitochondrial D-loop region of 217 animals representing eight breeds from eight different locations in India along with published sequences of Mediterranean buffalo.

Results: The maximum parsimony tree showed one major clade with six internal branches. Reduced median network revealed expansion from more than one set of haplotypes indicating complex domestication events for this species. In addition, we found several singleton haplotypes. Using rho statistics, we obtained a time estimate of 6300 years BP for the expansion of one set of hapltoypes of the Indian domestic buffalo. A few breed specific branches in the network indicated an ancient time depth of differentiation of some of the maternal lineages of river buffalo breeds. The multidimensional display of breed pairwise FST values showed significant breed differentiation.

Conclusion: Present day river buffalo is the result of complex domestication processes involving more than one maternal lineage and a significant maternal gene flow from the wild populations after the initial domestication events. Our data are consistent with the available archaeological information in supporting the proposition that the river buffalo was likely to be domesticated in the Western region of the Indian subcontinent, specifically the present day breeding tracts of the Mehsana, Surati and Pandharpuri breeds.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A multidimensional scaling plot (MDS). The MDS plot drawn using pairwise FST values of eight Indian river buffalo breeds showing genetic relationship among them.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Isolation by distance relationship. Scatter plot of pairwise FST vs geographic distances of eight Indian river buffalo breeds showing significant correlation between geographic and genetic distance.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Maximum parsimony tree of river buffalo with Bos taurus as an outgroup. Numbers above the branches correspond to the bootstrap using 1000 sequence replicates.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Reduced median network of Indian and Mediterranean river buffalo. The reduced median network was constructed using NETWORK 4.1.1.2 program with 921 bp sequences of mtDNA D-loop region of the Indian and Mediterranean river buffalo. The size of the circle is proportional to the number of animals represented. The length of the line represents the number of mutational steps.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Outline map of India. It shows the sampling sites of the eight Indian river buffalo breeds used in this study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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