Korea is an important geographical location for wintering dabbling ducks. In order to investigate their relationships, 92 ducks from ten breeds were sampled from nine different geographical areas in Korea. Of these, 38 samples are represented as Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), Spot-billed (Anas poecilorhyncha zonorhyncha) and domestic (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus) ducks. They are very closely related to commercial duck breeds. The partial (746 and 749 bp) mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) COI (Cytochrome Oxidase I) gene sequences were obtained and 126 SNPs were identified, which belong to 23 haplotypes. Eighty five Anas and ten Aix genus have been used for phylogenetic analysis. Based on the neighbor-joining (NJ) method, duck species used in this study can be well differentiated, except for the three duck breeds, Mallard, Spot-billed and domestic ducks, where most of the individuals belong to haplotype 12. The highest K2P distance, 0.31, was observed in Spot-billed ducks, with a range of 0.07-10.96 between the species. However, there was no correlation between geographic distance (km) and K2P distance (%) between the species. Based on our results, duck species can be discriminated with COI sequences, except for the three closely related breeds, and this can be effectively used for an appropriate conservation program for the wild duck breeds in Korea.Key words: COI gene, dabbling ducks, genetic diversity, phylogeny J. Poult. Sci., 49: 163-170, 2012 Introduction Many species of wild ducks seasonally migrated for breeding purposes in winter to take full advantage of limited resources in the world environment (Masashi et al., 2000). A large number of wild ducks which moved to Korea every year to compose a mating group, resulted in the frequent occurrence of interspecific crossing (Masashi et al., 2000;Kulikova et al., 2004). Approximately, 10% of ducks are found to interbreed through cross-breeding, which is known to often outcross hybrids (Johnsgard, 1960(Johnsgard, , 1963Panov, 1989;Tubaro and Lijtmaer, 2002). Wild ducks in Korea are classified typographically into Anseriformes-Anatidae (49 species) (OSK, 2009). Anseriformes-Anatidae is broadly classified into Anserinae and Anatinae. Anserinae is subdivided into three tribes such as Anserini (13 species) including the whistling duck and wild goose, Tadornini (3 species) including Common Shelduck and Cairinini (1 species). Anatinae is also subdivided into three tribes such as Anatini (13 species) including Mallard ducks, Aythyini (15 species) including Common Pochard and Mergini (4 species) including merganser (Hoyo et al., 1992;Lee et al., 2000;Paul, 2008; OSK, 2009). Taxonomical relationships for these wild ducks are classified based on basic approaches like morphology, anatomy, behavioral evolution, molecular biology, etc. (Livezey, 1986;Hoyo et al., 1992;Lanyon, 1993;Carole et al., 2002). However, DNA based phylogenetic relationships are more reliable in the discrimination of ducks species.To increase duck meat production, ducks were hybridized from Mallard ducks in...