Early Holocene chicken domestication in northern China

Xiang, Hai; Jian-qiang, Gao; Yu, Baoquan; Zhou, Hui; Cai, Dawei; Zhang, Youwen; Chen, Xiaoyong; Wang, Xi; Hofreiter, Michael; Zhao, Xingbo

doi:10.1073/pnas.1411882111

Cited by 167 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The chicken (Gallus gallus) was domesticated approximately 8000 years ago in several domestication centers in Eastern Asia (Xiang et al, 2014). The Red Junglefowl (RJF) is considered the ancestor of all domesticated chicken breeds (Fumihito et al, 1996;Storey et al, 2012;Tixier-Boichard et al, 2011).…”

Section: Chicken Domesticationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Domestication and early experiences in chickens: Behavior, stress and gene expression

Løtvedt¹

2017

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A number of animal species have undergone domestication, the process of becoming adapted to living in captivity and in proximity to humans. Common for these species is that they have all developed certain traits, including changes to coat color, body size and level of fearfulness. This has been termed the domestic phenotype. Among these traits is also an attenuation of the response to stress, both behaviorally and physiologically. Thus, release of glucocorticoids such as cortisol or corticosterone is lower in domesticated species. However, the underlying mechanism for this is not yet well understood. In this thesis, we have investigated genetic mechanisms for the attenuation of the physiological stress response in ancestral chickens, the Red Junglefowl, and domesticated chickens, the White Leghorn.We found a number of genes that differed in expression between the two breeds in several tissues involved in the stress response. Among the most interesting findings were lower expression of genes involved in production and secretion of ACTH in the pituitary, and in the production of glucocorticoids in the adrenal glands, in the domesticated White Leghorns. We also found higher expression of the glucocorticoid receptor in White Leghorns, indicating that they may have a more efficient negative feedback of the physiological stress response.We then investigated the transcriptome of the chicken pituitary more closely, and we discovered that a number of genes highly involved in several important physiological axes showed differential expression between the ancestral and the domesticated breed. Among these were genes involved in the stress response, the reproductive system, and in metabolism and growth. As these traits are modified in domesticated species, our results suggest that changes to gene expression in the pituitary may be an important underlying factor of the domestic phenotype.A separate aim of this thesis was to investigate effects of hatching time in chickens on their subsequent phenotype. Time of hatching constitutes an early experience that may differ between individuals, and we therefore hypothesized that differences in hatching time would affect chickens later in life. While a number of studies have been performed on hatching time and post-hatch growth, very little work has been done on effects on behavior. We found that the time of hatching had sex-specific effects. Hatching times in females were negatively correlated with body weight, whereas in males, behaviors such as reaction to novelty and spatial learning were affected.As time of hatching is governed by various hormones, including thyroid hormone and corticosterone, we suggest that changes to the levels of these hormones could affect both hatching time and post-hatch phenotypes. Understanding these mechanisms better would be beneficial in terms of production, where batch homogeneity is important, in research on early experiences and the potential for maternal programming, and in evolutionary questions on trade-off between different life strateg...

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Section: Chicken Domesticationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Domestication and early experiences in chickens: Behavior, stress and gene expression

Løtvedt¹

2017

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“…According the UN Food and Agriculture organization, in 2012 there were about 20 billion domestic fowl (primarily chicken, but also turkeys, geese and ducks), 1.7 billion heads of cattle and buffalo, and 2.1 billion heads of sheep and goats (FAO 2013). It is estimated than 90 % of the mammalian biomass on Earth is made up of humans and their domestic animals, primarily cattle; this value has grown several orders of magnitude since the domestication of these animals about 10,000 years ago (Barnosky 2008;Vince 2011;Xiang et al 2014). Would the same abundance have been available in the ancient past?…”

Section: A Virtual Trip Back In Timementioning

confidence: 99%

Jurassic Pork: What Could a Jewish Time Traveler Eat?

2015

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Paleontologists use multiple methods to reconstruct the anatomy and behavior of extinct animals, including direct observations from well-preserved fossils and inferences from the phylogeny of modern and extinct relatives. We illustrate these techniques by reference to the biblical definitions of kosher and non-kosher animals; that is, how can we apply these approaches to the hypothetical question of whether an extinct form would have been kosher. The biblical categories do not readily map to modern understandings of systematics, but are heavily based on life mode. When given, distinguishing characteristics, such as the presence of fins and scales in aquatic animals, can be readily seen directly in fossils. In other cases, such as cud chewing, they need to be inferred from the phylogenetic relationships of the fossil forms. Dinosaurs (other than birds), unfortunately, are not kosher. A kosher "paleo diet" would be increasingly difficult further in the past. The use of biblical content as a way of introducing concepts from paleontology and evolutionary biology, such as crown groups and stem groups, should be of broad interest.

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“…The chicken was domesticated around 6 000 to 10 000 years ago in Southeast Asia from the Red Junglefowl (Tixier-Boichard, Bed'hom et al 2011;Xiang, Gao et al 2014), and has probably also seen some introgression from the Grey Junglefowl (Eriksson, Larson et al 2008). Domestication, here understood as the evolutionary process when a wild population changes in response to a life with humans, clearly has multiple causes (Price 1984;Zeder 2012;Larson and Fuller 2014).…”

Section: Background Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genomics of chicken domestication and feralisation

Johnsson¹

2015

Linköping Studies in Science and Technology. Dissertations

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Domestication can serve as a study system of rapid evolutionary change with wideranging effects on traits in animals. The chicken was domesticated from the Red Junglefowl and has diverged in behaviour, morphology and life history traits. Conversely, feralisation is a more recent process when domestic animals are again exposed and respond to an environment outside of human husbandry. Linkage-based quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping has been used to localise genetic variants that affect domestication traits in the chicken genome. Because of the limited resolution of linkage mapping, the QTL regions associated with domestication traits are often broad and contain many genes. One approach to help sort out potential causative genes is to measure gene expression as an intermediary molecular phenotype. In this dissertation, expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) mapping of gene expression traits is used to search for potential causative genes for domestication traits in the chicken. Expression quantitative trait loci were mapped across the whole genome in bone and hypothalamus samples, and targeted at QTL regions in the base of the comb. These studies have resulted in candidate quantitative trait genes, supported by genetic and gene expression evidence, for relative comb mass, bone allocation, egg production and fearful behaviour as measured in an open field test. Secondly, a population genomics approach was used to study the molecular basis of feralisation in a free-range feral chicken population from the Pacific island of Kauai. Mitochondrial DNA sequences and phenotypic observations establish the hybrid origin of this population as a mixture of wild and domestic chickens. Genome-wide mapping of pooled heterozygosity highlight regions that may be involved in adaptation to the feral environment. The expression QTL results bring us closer to knowledge about the molecular basis of domestication traits in the chicken, suggesting plausible candidate genes and opening up for functional studies of individual loci. The population genomic study shows that feralisation has a mostly different genomic architecture than domestication, and suggests phenotypic effects, based on overlap with domestication QTL regions, for some of the identified regions. 2 Populärvetenskaplig sammanfattningDomesticering är när en vild population ger upphov till en tam population i människans vård, och är ett exempel på snabb evolutionär förändring som påverkar många ärftliga egenskaper hos djur. Feralisering, å andra sidan, är när tama djur åter utsätts för vilda omgivningar. De stora ärftliga skillnader som uppstått under domesticering gör att jämförelsen mellan vilda och tama djur kan användas som genetiskt studiesystem för flera kvantitativa egenskaper. Hos feraliserade djur kan man se vad som händer med tamdjurs egenskaper och genetiska varianter i en vild miljö.Den här avhandlingen handlar om den genetiska grunden för domesticering och feralisering. Den omfattar arbeten som belyser, i tur och ordning: hönskammens storlek; benets ...

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Early Holocene chicken domestication in northern China

Cited by 167 publications

References 35 publications

Domestication and early experiences in chickens: Behavior, stress and gene expression

Domestication and early experiences in chickens: Behavior, stress and gene expression

Jurassic Pork: What Could a Jewish Time Traveler Eat?

Genomics of chicken domestication and feralisation

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