ASSESSING ADMIXTURE BY QUANTIFYING BREED COMPOSITION TO GAIN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON DAIRY CATTLE IN CANADA

Abstract Text: To further help determine the history of Canadian dairy breeds, breed proportions were estimated using ADMIXTURE software and compared to regression on ancestral allele frequencies in 3 widely used breeds that have been shown to be related in some way to the native Canadienne breed of cattle. A high correlation between methods was found, and very little admixture across Holstein, Jersey, and Brown Swiss breeds was found. The small amount of admixture detected, mostly in the Brown Swiss breed can be contributed to rare use of sires from other breeds as well as a historical mixing of all of these breeds with ancestral Canadian breeds. 

Keywords: dairy cattle, breed composition, history