Preliminary comparison between microsatellite and AFLP multilocus genotypes for bovine breed assignment

Reliable methods for tracing animal products to breeds or their region of origin would allow a certification of regional products. This would contribute to consumers confidence and to the exploitation of local genetic resources in marginal rural areas. Different methods can be envisaged to assign individuals to breeds or populations exploiting molecular information. Among these, the estimation of genetic distances between individuals followed by the depiction of the results by multivariate methods is frequently used. However, representation of genetic relationships in a tree or multidimensional plots, depends on the choice of distance measure and graphical representation, and rarely leads to clusters that correspond to breeds. In addition, bifurcating tree topologies suppose a strictly hierarchical population history........