Data from: Capturing goats: documenting two hundred years of mitochondrial DNA diversity among goat populations from Britain and Ireland

The domestic goat (Capra hircus) plays a key role in global agriculture, being especially prized in regions of marginal pasture. However, the advent of industrialized breeding has seen a dramatic reduction in genetic diversity within commercial populations, while high extinction rates among feral herds have further depleted the reservoir of genetic variation available. Here, we present the first survey of whole mitochondrial genomic variation among the modern and historical goat populations of Britain and Ireland using a combination of mtDNA enrichment and high throughput sequencing. Fifteen historical taxidermy samples, representing the indigenous ‘Old Goat’ populations of the islands, were sequenced alongside five modern Irish dairy goats and four feral samples from endangered populations in western Ireland. Phylogenetic and network analyses of European mitochondrial variation revealed distinct groupings dominated by historical British and Irish samples, which demonstrate a degree of maternal genetic structure between the goats of insular and continental Europe. Several Irish modern feral samples also fall within these clusters, suggesting continuity between these dwindling populations and the ancestral ‘Old Goats’ of Ireland and Britain.

家山羊（Capra hircus）在全球农业中发挥着关键作用，在边际牧场区域尤为受重视。然而，工业化育种的出现使得商业种群的遗传多样性大幅下降，而野生种群的高灭绝率进一步耗尽了可获取的遗传变异库。本研究首次结合线粒体DNA（mitochondrial DNA，mtDNA）富集与高通量测序技术，对英国与爱尔兰的现代及历史山羊种群的全线粒体基因组变异展开调查。本研究对15份代表该群岛本土‘古老山羊’种群的历史剥制标本，以及5份现代爱尔兰奶山羊样本、4份采自爱尔兰西部濒危野生种群的野生山羊样本进行了测序。对欧洲线粒体变异的系统发育与网络分析显示，以英国和爱尔兰历史样本为主的聚类群具有显著区分度，表明群岛与欧洲大陆的山羊之间存在一定程度的母系遗传结构。多份爱尔兰现代野生山羊样本也归入这些聚类群中，这表明这些日渐减少的种群与爱尔兰和英国的祖先‘古老山羊’之间存在遗传延续性。