Heartfelt congratulations to Prof. Katarzyna Ropka-Molik, PhD and Monika Stefaniuk-Szmukier, PhD, Prof. of NRIAP, who participated in the Y chromosome study led by Lara Radovic and Barbara Wallner from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. A detailed analysis of 1517 stallions belonging to 189 breeds allowed the reconstruction of the spread of horses of oriental origin over the last 1500 years. On this basis, the researchers demonstrated the routes of the spread of oriental stallions through the Iberian Peninsula to Europe and the New World between the 8th and 16th centuries, as well as a second important historical process of the spread of horses from Western Asia, attributed to the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, providing the source of the Arabian and Thoroughbred stallions that later played such a key role in the formation of modern horse breeds.
The researchers at the National Research Institute of Animal Production have also co-authored an article in the prestigious American journal PNAS, in which the findings are detailed. The publication is available at https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2414408121.