The Lipizzan horse, established in 1580 in Lipica, is one of the most famous horse breed in the world. To verify the authenticity of maternal lineages in Lipizzan horses we analyzed maternal segregation of the nucleotide sequence of the mitochondrial control region (D-loop mtDNA) (nt 15476 – 15834) through the pedigree. The analyses were done for 258 Lipizzan horses sampled mainly in Croatia, State stud Lipik (40), State stud Đakovo (59) and private farms (129) as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina, State stud Vučijak (19). Out of 24 analyzed mare lines we have found 23 different haplotypes. On a very long pedigree, tracing up to 36 generations, we found inconsistency (18.2%) in the maternal segregation. In several cases we were able to reconstruct the history and origin of the pedigree errors. Here, for populations with complex pedigree structure, we demonstrated the usefulness of the joint mtDNA and pedigree segregation analyses in tracing pedigree errors and maintenance of reliable herd book identification.

Lipizzan; mitochondrial DNA; pedigree error; maternal lineage

Published by University of Zagreb, Faculty of Agriculture, Zagreb, CROATIA
Sponsored by Ministry Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia