Genetic characteristics of introduced mouflons in Croatia and Slovenia

In the early 20th century, mouflons were introduced in Croatia, while introductions in Slovenia occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. Since the introduction, populations in both countries have remained stable, with occasional declines and increases in some areas. Our aim was to: i) determine the origin of introduced mouflons, ii) compare the neutral and adaptive genetic make up of introduced populations. We also included individuals from Germany, Corsica, Sardinia, and the Czech Republic in the genetic analysis, which was performed at neutral loci (partial fragment of mitochondrial control region, mtCR) and adaptive major histocompatibility complex (MHC; DRB exon 2) using the next generation approach. The haplotype network based on mtCR showed that most mouflons from Slovenia share the same haplotypes or are closely related to mouflons from Germany and Sardinia; a few share the same haplotypes as most mouflons from Croatia. All Croatian mouflons share the same or close haplotypes as the population from Croatia’s Brijuni National Park. Similar results in both countries were revealed by MHC genes. The origin of populations, as indicated by the genetic data, is consistent with written historical data, but also clarifies some evidence for the introduction or release of additional individuals into some colonies for which historical data are not available. We confirmed that both mitochondrial DNA and MHC polymorphism can be used as powerful markers for studying translocation pathways.