ANNOUNCEMENT

ANNOUNCEMENT 

On the 17-th of November, at 12.00 h, in the meeting hall of IBIR “Acad. Kiril Bratanov”, a scientific seminar will take place according to the following program:

„Mitochondrial diversity in mountain horse population from Bulgaria” 

Assoc. prof. George Radoslavov, PhD

Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria

It is believed that population structure of mountain horse breeds is preserved from any genetic introgression, because of their geographical isolation and specific semi-wild life style of husbandry. Till date there are no molecular data for the Balkan horses. In this study we try to give information about some autochthonous mountain horse breeds from Bulgaria. A total of 121 horses from three different mountain massifs are presented: Stara Planina (the Balkan mountain), the Rhodopes and Rila-Pirin massif were genotyped according to mitochondrial D-loop region. The results showed huge diversity of all known haplogroups with exception of C, F and R. West Eurasian haplogroups B, D, M and L were with the highest frequencies. Haplogroups A, J, I, O’P and Q were also observed with the highest frequencies, but not equally distributed among the three populations. Analyses of the horse breeds reveal preserved genetic profile of the Balkan and the Rhodopes mountains populations. In contrast, a Rila-Pirin breed unexpectedly showed mixed profile – a massive genetic introgression with an Asiatic-type haplogroups. The genetic pool of three Bulgarian mountain horse populations is highly heterogenic and because of that these breeds should be preserved.

Everyone is welcome!