The domestic water buffalo is native to the Asian continent but through historical migrations and recent importations, nowadays has a worldwide distribution. The two types of water buffalo, i.e., river and swamp, display distinct morphological and behavioral traits, different karyotypes and also have different purposes and geographical distributions. River buffaloes from Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Mozambique, Brazil and Colombia, and swamp buffaloes from China, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Brazil were genotyped with a species-specific medium-density 90K SNP panel. We estimated the levels of molecular diversity and described population structure, which revealed historical relationships between populations and migration events. Three distinct gene pools were identified in pure river as well as in pure swamp buffalo populations. Genomic admixture was seen in the Philippines and in Brazil, resulting from importations of animals for breed improvement. Our results were largely consistent with previous archeological, historical and molecular-based evidence for two independent domestication events for river- and swamp-type buffaloes, which occurred in the Indo-Pakistani region and close to the China/Indochina border, respectively. Based on a geographical analysis of the distribution of diversity, our evidence also indicated that the water buffalo spread out of the domestication centers followed two major divergent migration directions: river buffaloes migrated west from the Indian sub-continent while swamp buffaloes migrated from northern Indochina via an east-south-eastern route. These data suggest that the current distribution of water buffalo diversity has been shaped by the combined effects of multiple migration events occurred at different stages of the post-domestication history of the species.

Beef aging is one of the most common methods used for improving its qualities. The main goal of the present study was to analyse the influence of different cold pressed oils and aromatic herbs during marination process on the nutritional, textural, and sensory attributes of the final grilled sirloin samples. In order to fulfil this goal, methods like GC-MS, HPLC/DAD/ESI-MS, HLPC-RID were performed to quantify fatty acids, phenolic acids, and organic acids, respectively. Textural and sensory analysis were performed with CT 3 Texture Analyser and hedonic test. The results showed high improvement of the meat grilled samples regarding the content of phenolic acids, and textural and sensory characteristics. Pearson values indicate strong positive correlations between raw and grilled samples regarding their content in phenolic acids. Hardness, chewiness, gumminess decreased during marination, meanwhile, resilience, and cohesiveness increased. Sensory analysis highlighted that meat samples marinated with olive oil and rosemary for 120 h reached the highest hedonic score among the tested samples.

The content of α S1 -casein in goat milk varies in wide limits from an individual to another (0-7.2 g/L) due to the complex genetic polymorphism of this protein. Between the 18 genetic variants (alleles) there are big differences concerning the expression level of this protein in milk (Grosclaude et al., 1987;Mahe et al., 1994;Caroli et al., 2006). The aim of this paper was to report the average values and phenotypical correlations of the qualitative parameters of goat milk (the content of fat, protein, casein, lactose, unfatty dry matter) function of genotypes identi ied at α S1 -casein locus by the isoelectric focusing technique (IEF). The average values of the analyzed parameters are different function of genotype, the biggest values being recorded in homozygous AA genotype, and the smallest in the homozygous FF genotype. The most numerous positive correlations, intense and signi icant between the qualitative milk parameters are recorded in homozygous AA genotype. In conclusion, allele A from the CSN1S1 locus, which codi ies α S1 -casein in goat has advantages in genetic markers assisted selection (MAS).