Pamela Wiener

and 12 more

Cameroon Blackbelly sheep are a domestic breed of hair sheep from West/Central Africa. They are popular with small holder farmers in Cameroon as they are highly resilient to local environmental challenges and are prolific aseasonal breeders. The aim of this study was to characterise the genetics of the Cameroon Blackbelly sheep in relation to global sheep populations and to investigate their relationship to Caribbean hair sheep. We first examined the genetic diversity of the Cameroon Blackbelly breed relative to global sheep populations using 50K SNP data. We also used whole genome sequence (WGS) data to further investigate relationships between the Cameroon Blackbelly breed and breeds from Africa and Europe, as well as the Barbados Blackbelly breed from the Caribbean, which is phenotypically similar to Cameroon Blackbelly. Admixture results based on 50K and WGS data demonstrated both West/Central African and European ancestries for the Barbados Blackbelly sheep. Local ancestry inference identified several genomic regions in Barbados Blackbelly that had high proportions of West/Central African ancestry. One of these regions, on OAR3, includes various keratin genes, suggesting that these genes may play a role in the shared coat phenotypes of Barbados Blackbelly and Cameroon Blackbelly. The findings of our study support the view that sheep were transported from West/Central Africa to the Caribbean as part of the slave trade and European colonization. The genomic resources we have generated also highlight the unique genetic diversity represented by West/Central African sheep, their contribution to global breed formation, and the importance of conserving genetic diversity.