Inheritance of White Colour in Alpacas - Australian Alpaca Association

About the Author
Dr Kylie Munyard obtained her undergraduate degree in Biology, with Honours in Veterinary
Biology, from Murdoch University in 1990. After working as a Clinical Cytogeneticist, she went on
to complete a PhD (“The Ecology of Methanogens in the Rumen”) at UWA/CSIRO in 2000.
Dr Munyard is currently a Senior Lecturer/Researcher in Molecular Biology at the School of
Biomedical Sciences at Curtin University. Her research interests are South American Camelid
genetics and conservation genetics of Australian quail. In 2006, with funding from the AAA, she
worked with alpaca breeders to perform a survey of the incidence of staggers in Australian alpacas. A
two-year project investigating microsatellite markers in alpacas (funded by Morris Animal
Foundation) has also been completed. The results from both projects have been published in peerreviewed
scientific journals. In 2008 she was an invited speaker at two seminal events, the Inaugural
World Alpaca Conference (Sydney) and the 1 st International Workshop on Camelid Genetics.
Prior to commencing Academic duties in the school of Biomedical Sciences at Curtin University, Dr
Munyard was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for High-throughput Agricultural Genetic
Analysis (CHAGA), specialising in animal and instrumentation projects. Her projects within CHAGA
included the invention of a DNA extraction kit, as well as provision of parentage assessments on
cattle, and the development of an online database that allows fast and easy assignment of parentage to
unknown animals. Two provisional patents and one full patent have arisen from that work.
Acknowledgments
The research reported herein would not have been possible without the unstinting, enthusiastic support
of the members of the AAA. They provided advice, support, information and, most importantly,
samples from their fascinating and precious animals. Special thanks go to Veterinarian Carolyn
Emery for her assistance with sample collection throughout the project.
Many Students from Curtin’s School of Biomedical Science have been involved in this project, and I
thank them for their contributions. I would particularly like to acknowledge the extensive
contributions of Ms Natasha Feeley and Mr Rhys Cransberg. Both Tash and Rhys received First Class
Honours, and are now studying towards their PhD, on research directly related to this project.
Abbreviations
DNA Deoxyribose nucleic acid
RNA Ribose nucleic acid
AAA Australian Alpaca Association Ltd
AAFL Australian Alpaca Fleece Ltd
PCR the polymerase chain reaction
bp base pairs
Kb kilobases
SNP single nucleotide polymorphism
RNA-seq massively parallel sequencing of expressed RNA
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