The Polish Primitive Horse (PPH, Konik) is a Polish native horse breed managed through a conservation program mainly due to its characteristic phenotype of a primitive horse. One of the most important goals of PPH breeding strategy is the preservation and equal development of all existing maternal lines. However, until now there was no investigation into the real genetic diversity of 16 recognized PPH dam lines using mtDNA sequence variation. Herein, we describe the phylogenetic relationships between the PPH maternal lines based upon partial mtDNA D-loop sequencing of 173 individuals. Altogether, 19 mtDNA haplotypes were detected in the PPH population. Five haplotypes were putatively novel while the remaining 14 showed the 100% homology with sequences deposited in the GenBank database, represented by both modern and primitive horse breeds. Generally, comparisons found the haplotypes conformed to 10 different recognized mtDNA haplogroups (A, B, E, G, J, M, N, P, Q and R). A multi-breed analysis has indicated the phylogenetic similarity of PPH and other indigenous horse breeds derived from various geographical regions (e.g., Iberian Peninsula, Eastern Europe and Siberia) which may support the hypothesis that within the PPH breed numerous ancestral haplotypes (found all over the world) are still present. Only in the case of five maternal lines (Bona, Dzina I, Geneza, Popielica and Zaza) was the segregation of one specific mtDNA haplotype observed. The 11 remaining lines showed a higher degree of mtDNA haplotype variability (2–5 haplotypes segregating in each line). This study has revealed relatively high maternal genetic diversity in the small, indigenous PPH breed (19 haplotypes, overall HapD = 0.92). However, only some traditionally distinguished maternal lines can be treated as genetically pure. The rest show evidence of numerous mistakes recorded in the official PPH pedigrees. This study has proved the importance of maternal genetic diversity monitoring based upon the application of molecular mtDNA markers and can be useful for proper management of the PPH conservation program in the future.

Borowska, A. and Szwaczkowski, T. 2015. Pedigree analysis of Polish warmblood horses participating in riding performance tests. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 95: 21–29. The aim of this study was to describe the population structure and genetic diversity in Polish warmblood horse population participating in the performance test. The reference population consisted of 596 stallions and 866 mares that participated in stationary performance tests conducted between 2002 and 2011 in Poland. The pedigree data contained 15 452 individuals. Completeness of pedigree information was assessed by two measures: percentage of animals with both parents known and discrete generation equivalent. Individual inbreeding coefficients, coancestry coefficient, individual increase in inbreeding, founder equivalent, founder genome equivalent, effective number of non-founders and genetic diversity loss were estimated to characterize the genetic diversity of the population. The average number of discrete generation equivalents reached 4.50 for observed stallions and 5.04 for mares, which shows good pedigree completeness. Pedigree analysis showed that 34% of the stallions and 44% of mares had inbreeding coefficients above zero. The average coancestry was 0.39% in the whole tested population. Average inbreeding rate of studied populations was very low (0.46%). The effective number of founders was 560. Generally, the inbreeding rate was low; genetic diversity was observed at a constant level for mares and only a small decrease was noticed for stallion. However, further studies are needed in this area.

The main objective of the study was to determine the genetic diversity in the Polish Konik (PK) population in the context of a currently conducted conservation program. A total of 94 horses of 16 PK dam lines currently distinguished by breeders were considered. Pedigree analyses were carried out for the whole population of PK registered in the studbook. Basic molecular parameters were estimated. The average group linkage clustering method was used based on the Euclidean similarity measurements between the lines. The allele frequency of 17 microsatellites was used to determine Euclidean distances. Inbreeding coefficients were extracted from the additive relationship matrix. Moreover, some pedigree parameters were estimated. The observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.48 to 0.76. The expected heterozygosity estimated for the dam lines was higher. PIC values were higher than 0.6 in all the lines. F_is ranged from –0.19 to 0.28, whereas F_it and F_st varied between 0.12 and 0.41 and 0.12 and 0.29, respectively. Minor dissimilarity distances existed for some dam lines. The inbreeding level was 9.3%. The average number of discrete generation equivalents reached 6.85. The majority of the dam lines are not genetically differentiated. Hence, a revision of the breeding strategy seems to be necessary.