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Entlebucher Mountain Dog
Population Genetic Analysis
By Carol Beuchat PhD
June 2015


The pedigree database was supplied by Dru Patterson, President of the National Entlebucher Mountain Dog Association (US)

SUMMARY

  • Over the breed's history (as recorded in this database), the breed has produced a total of about 17,700 dogs, about 13% of which produced offspring. To maintain genetic diversity in a population of animals, it is recommended that at least 50% of the animals should contribute offspring to the gene pool. 
  • The current reproductive population has the genetic diversity expected of a population that was founded with 4.8 animals. It is recommended that this number should be at least 100
  • Only 6% of the dogs in the current reproductive population have to date produced offspring recorded in the database.
  • The average level of relatedness (genetic similarity) of the animals in the current reproductive population is 38%.  By comparison, the relatedness of full siblings is 25%.
  • The effective population size of the current reproductive population is 162. The minimum size of a sustainably breeding population is about 1,000 randomly breeding animals.

*** The current population has the genetic equivalent of 4.8 dogs that are significantly more closely related than full siblings.


ANALYSIS DETAILS
For the entire pedigree database:
Total dogs in pedigree database = 17,690
Total males = 9,119
Total females = 8,552

Number of dogs with offspring = 2,264
Males with offspring = 761
Females with offspring = 1503

% of all dogs that were bred = 12.8%
% of all males that were bred = 8.3%
% of all females that were bred = 17.6%

For the current (potentially) reproductive population (dogs born since 2009)
Number of dogs = 2,848
Number of males = 1,459
Number of females = 1,387

Number of dogs with offspring = 176 (6.2%)
Males with offspring = 64 (4.4%)
Females with offspring = 112 (8.1%)

fe (effective number of founders) = 5.9
fa (effective number of ancestors) = 4.4
fg (founder genome equivalents) = 4.8

Ne (effective population size) = 162

average Mean Kinship = 38.8%

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