An investigation of genetic fecundity variants in Faroese sheep

Several genes have variants that impact fecundity in mammals. We sequenced parts of some genes with internationally known high-fecundity variants in sheep from the northern Faroese islands. No known variant was found. Other variants were found, but none could be linked to twin/multiple births. This was further investigated using 362 ewes from four flocks and a genotyping array containing 51,646 ovine SNPs. We previously used these data to show that the genetic distance among the animals were clearly related to geography (as islands). When analysing genetic variations against fertility (measured as present and historical single or multiple births), only a single SNP showed statistical significance, and this was located outside any known coding region. When the four flocks were individually analysed, a few SNPs showed statistical significance in one flock, but not in other flocks. This strongly indicated that the hits were random and not functionally linked to high fertility. Thus, we were not able to find any gene or genome region that could be linked to high fertility or fecundity in Faroese sheep.