The South African Angora goat industry makes the largest contribution to global mohair production. Mohair is a luxury fibre and production of a high quality clip is essential. For many years genetic improvement of Angoras in South Africa was based on quantitative selection. Genome mapping efforts provided new avenues for improvement and a quantitative trait loci (QTL) study was initiated to identify QTL associated with mohair traits. The aim of this study was to describe the genetic diversity of the reference population using the available stud and commercial herds with full phenotypic records. The most appropriate QTL design was identified based on the population structure with regard to the families and number of bucks available for breeding. Four herds, consisting of 1067 pure bred goats in 12 half-sib families, were included. Blood samples were obtained from the herds, 94 markers were tested and diversity parameters were estimated. The average number of alleles per marker varied between 5.4 and 7.2 amongst the herds, whereas the observed heterozygosity varied between 0.59 and 0.67. The genetic structure of these herds was found appropriate for use as a reference population as they showed sufficient genetic variability.

This study reports the results obtained in the search of chromosomal regions affecting fleece traits in a population of Angora goats in the Argentinean Patagonia. Six hundred thirty-four offspring from 14 parental half-sib families were used. Nine phenotypic fleece traits were recorded at 4 and 11 months of age. A genome examination using 85 informative molecular markers was conducted. A linkage analysis was performed using a regression interval analysis. Our study identified 10 genomic regions affecting the average fibre diameter, coefficient of variation of the average fibre diameter, percentage of fibres with diameters over 30 µm, greasy fleece weight, staple length, average curvature of fibres, percentage of continuous medullated fibres and percentage of kemp fibres located on five goat chromosomes (1, 2, 5, 13 and 19). These results show that the average size of the quantitative trait loci effect was 1.6 phenotypic standard deviations for different traits and families. The aims of quantitative trait loci detection is the potential use of these molecular markers to increase accuracy in predicting the genetic merit of breeding and its implementation in animal breeding schemes through marker-assisted selection.