Rare indigenous sheep breeds of Greece Kominakis, A. and E. Rogdakis Department of Animal Breeding & Husbandry, Agricultural University of Athens (AUA), Iera Odos 75, 11855, Athens, Greece, tel. +30-2105294403, fax +30-2105294442, e-mail:
[email protected] Of the 6400 documented farm animal breeds, about one third is threatened by extinction (Scherf, 2000). Unlike in general biology, the focus in farm animal biodiversity is not on species, but on breeds within species. While species are clearly defined, breeds are not. Some definitions are based on arguments from population genetics while others also include sociological and cultural considerations. An exhaustive survey, lasted over 3 years, was undertaken by the Department of Animal Breeding & Husbandry of AUA, in an attempt to identify and describe the rare indigenous sheep breeds of Greece. According to this study, there were totally 17 sheep breeds identified. In terms of census population size, the status of these indigenous sheep populations could be characterized as critical i.e. close to extinction (N<300), endangered (300<N<1000), vulnerable (N=1,000-5,000) or insecure (N=5,000- 10,000) (Bodo, 1989, modified). It should be, however, noted that these are general guidelines; knowledge of the effective population size (Ne) is more important because it is directly associated with the genetic variation of a population. In breeding populations, Ne can be dramatically smaller than the census one because it is strongly affected by the ratio of males to females, selection and non random mating. The major morphological and (re)production characteristics of the 17 rare sheep breeds are presented in Table 1.