Global diversity and genetic contributions of chicken populations from African, Asian and European regions

Abstract

Genetic diversity and population structure of 113 chicken populations from Africa, Asia and Europe were studied using 29 microsatellite markers. Among these, three populations of wild chickens and nine commercial purebreds were used as reference populations for comparison. Compared to commercial lines and chickens sampled from the European region, high mean numbers of alleles and a high degree of heterozygosity were found in Asian and African chickens as well as in Red Junglefowl. Population differentiation (FST ) was higher among European breeds and commercial lines than among African, Asian and Red Junglefowl populations. Neighbour-Net genetic clustering and structure analysis revealed two main groups of Asian and north-west European breeds, whereas African populations overlap with other breeds from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean region. Broilers and brown egg layers were situated between the Asian and north-west European clusters. structure analysis confirmed a lower degree of population stratification in African and Asian chickens than in European breeds. High genetic differentiation and low genetic contributions to global diversity have been observed for single European breeds. Populations with low genetic variability have also shown a low genetic contribution to a core set of diversity in attaining maximum genetic variation present from the total populations. This may indicate that conservation measures in Europe should pay special attention to preserving as many single chicken breeds as possible to maintain maximum genetic diversity given that higher genetic variations come from differentiation between breeds.

Effects of Long-term Graded L-arginine Supply on Growth Development, Egg Laying and Egg Quality in Four Genetically Diverse Purebred Layer Lines

“…Since studied GTs were considered to be well suited for the established animal model concerning the required phylogenetic (Granevitze et al, 2009;Lyimo et al, 2014) and performance divergence (Lieboldt et al, 2015), the present study was conducted to examine interactions between these GTs and long-term graded Arg supply serving as nutritional-environmental stress on growth development and performance of diverse purebred layer lines.…”

Genetic diversity and population structure of indigenous chicken breeds in South China

“…The genetic diversity of indigenous chicken breeds is a valuable resource for breeding and understanding the extent of genetic diversity is important for resource conservation and molecular breeding [2][3][4][5] . There are abundant indigenous chickens especially the three-yellow (feather, skin and shank are yellow) breeds in South China.…”

Genetic diversity and phylogeographic structure of sixteen Mediterranean chicken breeds assessed with microsatellites and mitochondrial DNA

“…Several authors have analysed the mtDNA D-loop region to study the phylogenetic relationships, to investigate the maternal origins of the different chicken populations, to evaluate the diversity among them and to determine their phylogeographic structure (Thomson et al, 2014;Miao et al, 2013;Storey et al, 2012;Mwacharo et al, 2011). MtDNA research provides a description of the breed structure and history, additionally relevant and complementary information is also generated by nuclear markers (as microsatellites) (Lyimo et al, 2014;Eltanany et al, 2011;Wilkinson et al, 2011;Muchadeyi et al, 2007).…”