MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Research plan to repopulate Chilean Patagonia with llamas

Chilean investigators are working with Brigham Young University to genetically select the best and most productive characteristics of Chile's llama population. Their aim is to ultimately repopulated Chile's southern Patagonia with llamas, which could become an economic resource for the region and also contribute to halting the erosion of Patagonia's fragile soil, which llama hooves do not wear down.

Etel Latorre, an investigator of Chile's Institute of Farming Investigations in the Agricultural Ministry, has been working 15 years with the Patagonia llamas issue. The Chilean institute has been working with Brigham Young University since 2005 in a genetics project that aims to identify a series of related molecular markers in llamas with valuable characteristics. The valuable characteristics include reproductive capabilities, resistance to disease, quality of fibre, and growth rate, among other things. If successful, the geneticists could help developed some of the finest wools in the world. The objective is to "establish some degree of association between the genetic map and some characteristics of productive interest, like the quality and colour of the fibre, with this we will be able to establish the differences between national camelids and other animals," said Latorre. At this moment, Latorre and her team are working on the identification of these genetic molecular markers. Choosing the best individuals to start genetic improvement based on phenotype selection is a step-by-step process. A genetic technician triggers a Polimerase Chain Reaction that permits the direct study of the animal's genome, by which it is possible to determine which parts of DNA are associated with those above-mentioned characteristics. From this, will be obtained a genetic map, "that, in a commercial sense, gives the power to select which [genetic] markers give more or less fine fibre," explains Latorre. The end result of genetically-enhanced llamas will eventually be reintroduced to the Patagonian lands of their natural-born ancestors. Five hundred years ago, llamas, alpacas, guanacos, and vicuñas populated a large part of Chilean territory. But the arrival of the Spaniards brought drastic change and these mammals began to disappear from the Andean plateaus on which they lived. The Santiago Times