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African Local Pig Genetic Resources in the Context of Climate Change Adaptation

L. Pius,Shuntao Huang,G. Wanjala,Z. Bagi,S. Kusza

Published 2024 in Animals

ABSTRACT

Simple Summary Pig farming is one of the most profitable components of the livestock sector in agriculture, significantly contributing to economic development, food security, and improved livelihoods for local communities in Africa and globally. However, with the increasing concern for global environmental changes, pig production is considered one of the vulnerable livestock sectors likely to be affected the most. Africa, being a tropical continent with extraordinary geographical and biological diversity, is believed to have varieties of local pigs exhibiting valuable genetic traits that can be used to promote livestock productivity through breeding for climate-resilient breeds. Unfortunately, many of these valuable traits have not been fully identified and exploited. This study provides an overview of the current state of African pig genetic resources by highlighting their diversity and adaptability potential from both phenotypic and genetic evidence. Our results indicate that African local pigs hold potential genetic traits critical for climate change adaptation. However, these traits are threatened due to crossbreeding activities with commercial breeds that are now prevalent across the continent. Thus, to keep up with the rapid speed of climate change, efforts to realize and utilize these considerable potential traits must increase before they are permanently depleted. Abstract Africa is home to a wide diversity of locally adapted pig breeds whose genetic architecture offers important insights into livestock adaptation to climate change. However, the majority of these inherent traits have not been fully highlighted. This review presents an overview of the current state of African pig genetic resources, providing highlights on their population and production statistics, production system, population diversity indices, and genomic evidence underlying their evolutionary potential. The study results reveal an incomplete characterization of local pig genotypes across the continent. The characterized population, however, demonstrates moderate to high levels of genetic diversity, enough to support breeding and conservation programs. Owing to low genetic differentiation and limited evidence of distinct population structures, it appears that most local pig populations are strains within larger breeds. Genomic evidence has shown a higher number of selection signatures associated with various economically important traits, thus making them potential candidates for climate change adaptation. The reportedly early evidence of hybridization with wild suid groups further suggests untapped insights into disease resistance and resilience traits that need to be illuminated using higher-density markers. Nevertheless, gene introgression from commercial breeds is prevalent across Africa; thus, efforts to realize and utilize these traits must increase before they are permanently depleted.

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