ORIGINAL ARTICLE Genetic characterization of the Burlina cattle breed using microsatellites markers C. Dalvit 1 , M. De Marchi 1 , R. Dal Zotto 1 , E. Zanetti 1 , T. Meuwissen 2 & M. Cassandro 1 1 Department of Animal Science, University of Padova, Agripolis, Italy 2 Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, A ˚ s, Norway Introduction The Burlina is a native, Italian, dairy cattle breed reared in North-East Italy; it is a small sized animal with black spotted coat, well adapted to difficult environmental conditions as marginal mountain areas; thanks to its good grazing characteristics. The origin of Burlina is still uncertain; the most probable hypothesis is that of Chiodi (1965), who suggested that Burlina came from the Jutland pen- insula and arrived in North Italy with the Cimbri population in the 11th century. Burlina spread mainly in the mountain area of Veneto region (Del Bo et al. 2001) where it has always been reared and appreciated by local farmers. Despite that the Burlina population had almost disappeared during the First World War, and later during the 1930–40s several actions were carried out to replace it with the more productive and cosmopolitan Brown Swiss (BSW) and Holstein Friesian (HFR). The number of reared animals drastically decreased from 15 000 in 1930 to 2300 in 1972 (R. Santomaso pers. comm.). In 1980, Burlina has been enrolled in the Italian Herd Book of local breeds. Nowadays, about 350 cows are registered in the Italian Herd Book, most of them located in the Treviso and Vicenza provinces of North-East Italy (AIA 2006). Several actions have been developed to safeguard the Burli- na breed, especially in the 1980s, aiming to increase the number of reared animals and the within population variability and to minimize the crosses with other breeds. Keywords Burlina; dairy cattle; genetic characterization; genetic diversity; microsatellite. Correspondence Martino Cassandro, Department of Animal Science, University of Padova, Agripolis, 35020 Legnaro (PD), Italy. Tel: +39 049 8272666; Fax: +39 049 8272633; E-mail: martino.cassandro@unipd.it Received: 29 March 2007; accepted: 18 October 2007 Summary The present study was a contribution on the genetic characterization of the Burlina local cattle breed, and an approach to understanding the relationships between Burlina, Holstein Friesian and Brown Swiss which represent the majority of the dairy cattle reared nowadays in North-East Italy. The obtained results helped to clarify the genetic diversity and dis- tinctiveness of Burlina population. In particular, the low genetic dis- tance between Burlina and Holstein Friesian and the assignment of a moderate percentage of Burlina animals to Holstein Friesian suggested that crosses between them took place in the past, while crosses with Brown Swiss seemed to be less frequent. However, analyses of marker genotypes, showed a cluster with only Burlina individuals, which dem- onstrates the genetic distinctness of this breed. The Burlina breed showed the highest variability among the analysed breeds and its inbreeding coefficient was low. The data contribute to the feasibility of a conservation and selection programme for this breed and the results are useful for the implementation of a conservation strategy that should aim to conserve animals where the contribution from foreign breeds is as small as possible. J. Anim. Breed. Genet. ISSN 0931-2668 ª 2008 The Authors Journal compilation ª 2008 Blackwell Verlag, Berlin • J. Anim. Breed. Genet. 125 (2008) 137–144 137