van der Westhuizen, Lené, authorNeser, Frederick W. C., authorLouw, Roan, authorInternational Wildlife Ranching Symposium, publisher2017-05-302017-05-302016-09http://hdl.handle.net/10217/180926http://dx.doi.org/10.25675/10217/180926Presented at the 9th international wildlife ranching symposium: wildlife - the key to prosperity for rural communities, held on 12-16 September 2016 at Hotel Safari & the Safari Court, Windhoek, Namibia in conjuction with the IUCN 2nd African Buffalo Symposium.Genetic diversity is essential to ensure viability of species and for them to respond to selection pressures. Climate change is predicted to cause extreme environmental conditions in South Africa with the potential for adverse impacts on livestock and wildlife that may not be as readily mitigated by selection, if genetic variance has been reduced by inbreeding. Estimating the genetic variability on both a herd and breed level include unbiased heterozygosity (Hz), mean number of alleles (MNA), genetic structure and inbreeding. The study describes preliminary results regarding genetic diversity estimates of Cape buffalo populations in South Africa. A total of 2601animals from 27 buffalo populations from different geographical areas of South Africa with the use of14 microsatellite markers. Multiple-locus assignment, performed using the Bayesian clustering algorithm of STRUCTURE, revealed two underlying genotypic groups. Across herds, Hz ranged from 0.48 to 0.73, averaging 0.65; MNA ranged from 3.5 to 8.9, averaging 6.7. Therefore, a reasonably high level of genetic diversity is present with buffalo populations. The average level of inbreeding (FIT) for the populations was estimated to be 1.2%, which also demonstrates low inbreeding. It is important to use these estimates as a conservation tool to ensure that inbreeding does not become a major concern in both private and state wildlife populations.born digitalPresentation slidesengCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.Text