Genomic diversity and historical legacy of Baroque horses : a living cultural heritage

Vostrá-Vydrová, Hana (author), Moravčíková, Nina (author), Kasarda, Radovan (author), Shihabi, Mario (author), Druet, T. (author), Halvonik, A. (author), Hofmanová, Barbora (author), Dovč, Peter (author), Zorc, Minja (author), Molina, A. (author), Demyda-Peyrás, S. (author), Valera, M. (author), Kovács, Máté (author), Posta, Janos (author), Rogić, Biljana (author), Čubrić Čurik, Vlatka (author), Vostrý, Luboš (author), Čurik, Ino (author)

Baroque horses represent a distinctive group of breeds that emerged mainly between the 16th and 18th centuries, shaped by the demands of European royalty and their courts. Although recognised as separate breeds, they share common ancestry, breeding goals, and historical gene flow. This study aimed to evaluate their genomic diversity, population structure, and admixture patterns. We analysed 1 160 individuals from eight breeds - Lipizzan, Old Kladruby Horse, Pura Raza Española, Lusitano, Friesian, Criollo, Peruvian Paso, and Puerto Rican Paso Fino - using 34 026 Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), with the Croatian Arab horse included as an outgroup. The Lipizzan was further divided into national subpopulations, the two Old Kladruby subpopulations defined by colour (black and grey), and within the Pura Raza Española, the Carthusian strain was treated as a distinct subpopulation. Observed genetic diversity, measured by heterozygosity and haplotype richness, was broadly comparable across breeds, although clear differences were observed between breeds with the lowest values (Friesian) and those with the highest values (Lusitano and Criollo). Genomic inbreeding coefficients, estimated using runs of homozygosity (FROH>2Mb) and homozygosity-by-descent segments (FHBD), ranged from ∼0.06 to ∼0.29 and ∼0.14 to ∼0.27, respectively. These values indicate relatively high levels of inbreeding, which may reflect the closed breeding structure of the populations and their relatively limited effective population sizes. In contrast, most individual inbreeding coefficients (FIS) values were negative, reflecting deliberate avoidance of close-relative matings. Estimates of contemporary effective population size (NeLD) ranged from ∼50 to ∼240 across breeds, depending on the method. Historical NeLD trajectories revealed two distinct demographic decline patterns: one occurring around 12 generations ago and the other around 22 generations ago. Evidence of recent between-breed gene flow was detected among Iberian breeds and between Croatian Arab and Lusitano, whereas shared historical ancestry among Baroque breeds was evident across populations. These results provide new insights into the genomic architecture of Baroque horses and offer valuable guidance for managing their genetic diversity.

• Language: English
• Keywords: genetic diversity, admixture, conservation, genetic diversity loss, genomics
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: BF - Biotechnical Faculty
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: 18 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 20, issue 8, [article no.] 101897
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-185601
• UDC: 636.1:575
• ISSN on article: 1751-732X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.animal.2026.101897
• COBISS.SI-ID: 286339331
• Publication date in RUL: 12.08.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Animal : the international journal of animal biosciences
• Publisher: Elsevier BV
• ISSN: 1751-732X
• COBISS.SI-ID: 2032008

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: baročni konji, genetika, genomika, genetska pestrost, zgodovinski pomen