Population and pedigree structure analysis unveils the high genetic diversity in the Murrah buffalo population

Murrah buffalo a high producing milch breed, significantly contributes to India's dairy industry, making it world's leading milk producing country, however receives a narrow focus in genetic improvement programs due to lack of sufficient information on the genetic architecture of its population. The present study aimed at analysing the pedigree and population structure of the Murrah buffalo herd maintained at the ICAR-Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes (ICAR-CIRB), Hisar, India. The herd serves as a nucleus population for genetic improvement programs, with systematic sire selection based on progeny testing. Pedigree analysis of 1,850 buffaloes revealed a mean equivalent complete generation (ECG) of 1.36 with a maximum of 5 generations traced. Pedigree completeness exceeded 50% up to two generations back, reflecting challenges in retrieving older data. The effective population size ( $N\text{e}$ ) was 281 ± 91, indicating high genetic diversity (GD = 0.996) and narrower bottlenecks ( $f\text{e}/f\text{a}=1.03$ ). Overall inbreeding in the herd was found to be low, with only 0.32% of the population exhibiting an inbreeding coefficient above 12.5%. The generation interval averaged 4.9 years, with the longest interval observed in the dam-to-son pathway. These findings highlight the genetic variability and low inbreeding in the herd, making it suitable for future advanced selection programs aimed at enhancing genetic gains without significant loss of diversity.