Genome Divergence and Dynamics in the Thin-Tailed Desert Sheep From Sudan

With climate change bound to affect food and feed production, emphasis will shift resilient adapted indigenous livestock sustain animal production. However, comprise several varieties, strains ecotypes whose genomes are poorly characterized. Here, we investigated genomic variation in an African thin-tailed Desert Sheep sampled Sudan, using 600K genotype data generated from 92 individuals representing five ecotypes. We included 18 fat-tailed 45 sheep China, investigate shared ancestry perform comparative analysis. observed a clear differentiation between the Chinese sheep, suggesting broad genetic structure general, that at least two autosomal gene pools genome profile of sheep. Further analysis detected distinct clusters both fine-scale complex architecture Selection signature suggested differences adaptation, reproduction morphology likely underly Sheep. This may need be considered designing breeding programs genome-wide association studies.