SUMMARY. The primary goal of our study was to assess the genetic diversity and population structure of the Ukrainian meat breed pigs. The twelve microsatellite markers were selected from the list of the microsatellites recommended by FAO/ISAG. The range of alleles per locus (Na) was found to be 5 to 14 with a mean of 8,42 and a total of 101 alleles were observed at these loci. A mean observed heterozygosity (Ho) of 0,668 and expected heterozygosity (He) averaged 0,718 respectively. LD-based population effective size (Ne) estimate for the Ukrainian meat breed pigs is 68,3 (95 % CI: 52–92) individuals. This population has not undergone any recent and/or sudden reduction in the effective population size and remained at mutation-drift equilibrium. The SW24, SW951, SW240, S0101, SW936 and S0228 loci genotypes were found to affect the total number of piglets born, number of piglets born alive and number of piglets weaned.
Keywords: genetic polymorphism, microsatellite loci, pigs, the Ukrainian meat breed
