Genetic studies of livestock populations focus on questions of domestication, within‐ and
among‐breed diversity, breed history and adaptive variation. In this review, we describe the …

… Funding support for J. Kantanen and M. Tapio was received from the Academy of Finland,
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and its program Sustainable Use of Natural Resources. …

Background Diversity patterns of livestock species are informative to the history of agriculture
and indicate uniqueness of breeds as relevant for conservation. So far, most studies on …

The domestication of livestock represented a crucial step in human history. By using endogenous
retroviruses as genetic markers, we found that sheep differentiated on the basis of their …

… h, j The relative expressions of PDGFD in tail fat by real-time PCR (qPCR) h and western
blot analysis j. k Adipogenesis signaling pathway 46 and the inhibitory function of PDGFD in …

… as a result of low effective population sizes (Kantanen et al. 1999). At the marker loci, the …
Allele frequency distributions suggest bottlenecks (distorted shape) in breeds A–J, whereas …

Global climate change has a significant effect on extreme environments and a profound
influence on species survival. However, little is known of the genome-wide pattern of livestock …

Three distinct mitochondrial maternal lineages (haplotype Groups A, B, and C) have been
found in the domestic sheep. Group B has been observed primarily in European domestic …

Following domestication, sheep (Ovis aries) have become essential farmed animals across
the world through adaptation to a diverse range of environments and varied production …

Despite much attention, history of sheep (Ovis aries) evolution, including its dating, demographic
trajectory and geographic spread, remains controversial. To address these questions, …