The zebu offered traits that would allow cattle to survive in hot, dry climates, while the taurine provided cattle with the ability to endure humid climates where vector-borne diseases like trypanosomiasis are common. The genome sequencing work conducted by the scientists revealed that indigenous pastoralist herders in the Horn of Africa began breeding the Asian zebu cattle with local taurine breeds about a thousand years ago. The taurine were introduced through North Africa some 8,000 years ago but remained largely confined to isolated belts of land in West and East Africa. These cattle were domesticated independently during the Neolithic era: once in south Asia, leading to the zebu or humped cattle, and the other in the Middle East, leading to taurine cattle. Today’s announcement helps explain how Africa’s cattle acquired such a range of advantages.Īll billion or so cattle today descend from ancient aurochs, an extinct species of large wild cattle that once inhabited large swaths of Eurasia. They also provide manure for crops and some African breeds can survive in conditions that can’t support food crops.īut to thrive in Africa’s diverse settings, cattle need an array of traits like heat and drought-tolerance, the capacity to control inflammation and tick infestations, and resistance to devastating livestock diseases like trypanosomiasis. They provide a critical source of protein and micronutrients alongside income to pay for things like school fees. For many rural households, cattle are among the family’s most valuable assets. Today, cattle play a central role in human livelihoods in Africa. They wanted to learn how-after spending thousands of years confined to a shifting patchwork of sub-regions in Africa-cattle rapidly evolved traits during the last millennia that allowed them to spread across the continent. The findings, published in the October issue of Nature Genetics, emerged from an effort to sequence the genomes of 172 indigenous cattle by scientists at the Nairobi and Ethiopia-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and Korea’s Seoul National University. The resulting crossbreed retained advantages from each subspecies, giving the admixture the ability to adapt to the continent’s diverse and challenging ecosystems. The event, dubbed an ‘evolutionary jolt’ by one of the scientists, brought together zebu (humped) and taurine (unhumped) cattle in the Horn of Africa some 750-1050 years ago. Centre for tropical livestock genetics and health.Poverty reduction, livelihoods and jobs.Gender, equality, youth and social inclusion.
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