A research group led by Associate Professor Shingo Kaneko and Researcher Donovan Anderson of Fukushima University conducted DNA analysis on wild boars living in and around Okuma Town and Namie Town in Fukushima Prefecture, and found livestock pigs that escaped after the earthquake. Verify the spread of the derived gene.It was revealed that mating with pure wild boar is likely to reduce the proportion of pig genes.
Analysis of mitochondrial DNA has shown that domestic pigs may have escaped and become wild due to the Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear power plant accident, crossed with Japanese wild boars, and expanded their distribution.As a result, there is a risk of damage to agriculture and forestry, the spread of classical swine fever, an increase in the number of offspring, and an increase in human behavior in the active area.The research group analyzed nuclear DNA, which has a great influence on the morphology and ecology of wild boars, in order to elucidate the spread of domestic pig genes in the wild boar population in Fukushima Prefecture.
Traces of ancestral crossing with pigs were observed in 191 (31%) of the 16 wild boars analyzed.Analysis with nuclear DNA revealed that the distribution of individuals with high frequency of pig-derived genes was limited to the vicinity of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, and the proportion of pig-derived genes decreased as the distance increased.It is believed that such a decrease is due to backcrossing in which a hybrid of a pig and a wild boar mates with a wild boar and a progeny mates with a wild boar again.
In this case, nuclear DNA seems to gradually lose the effects of crossing, but the analysis results of mitochondrial DNA derived from pigs and the genetic structure of wild boar show that problems such as introgression once occurred are rapidly due to the high mobility of wild boar. It also suggested the danger of spreading to.It reiterates the importance of preventive measures in crossbreeding problems and provides useful insights for crossbreeding studies.
