Assessment of Generation Interval and Inbreeding in a Peruvian alpaca population

Abstract Text: Nowadays, information about inbreeding and generation intervals in alpacas from pedigree information to monitoring genetic progress of selection programs, or genetic variability for conservations strategies, are scarce. To estimate these parameters, data from 12,493 individuals born from 1999 to 2012 in Mallkinis´ Farm - MICHELL Group, in Puno, Peru, were analyzed and processed with the program ENDOG 4.8. Generation intervals obtained were 5.938±0.017, 6.319±0.034, and 5,606±0.034 for the whole population, males and females, respectively, being differences between sexes statistically significant. Average inbreeding coefficients were 0.1654%±0.0155, 0.17±0.025 and 0.16 ±0.020 for the whole population, males and females, respectively. Only 1.097% alpacas had inbreeding coefficients greater than 0, with a minimum value of 1.56 % and a maximum of 25%. Furthermore, differences in these parameters were found per type and/or color of alpacas. The results show that the inbreeding in this population is present in a smaller extent.

Keywords: Inbreeding, alpaca, pedigree.