Morphological diversity of integumentary traits in fowl domestication: Insights from disparity analysis and embryonic development

Abstract

The domestication of the fowl resulted in a large diversity of integumental structures in chicken breeds. Several integumental traits have been investigated from a developmental genetics perspective. However, their distribution among breeds and their developmental morphology remain unexplored. We constructed a discrete trait‐breed matrix and conducted a disparity analysis to investigate the variation of these structures in chicken breeds; 20 integumental traits of 72 chicken breeds and the red junglefowl were assessed. The analyses resulted in slight groupings of breed types comparable to standard breed classification based on artificial selection and chicken type use. The red junglefowl groups together with bantams and European breeds. We provide new data on the red junglefowl and four chicken breeds, demonstrating where and when variation arises during embryonic development. We document variation in developmental timing of the egg tooth and feather formation, as well as other kinds of developmental patterning as in the anlagen of different type of combs. Changes in epithelial‐mesenchymal signaling interactions may drive the highly diverse integument in chickens. Experimental and comparative work has revealed that the cranial neural crest mesenchyme mediates its interactions with the overlying epithelium and is the likely source of patterning that generates diversity in integumental structures.

Exceptional Changes in Skeletal Anatomy under Domestication: The Case of Brachycephaly

“…Testing allometric scaling of cranial shape among varieties/breeds of domestic species would ideally entail the examination of closely related varieties/breeds (or even ancestral ones, if known), as allometric scaling patterns among clades in nature (i.e., Haller's rule and CREA) concern closely related species ( Cardini 2019 ). However, due to extensive interbreeding of varieties throughout parts of the history of many domestic forms (e.g., dogs [ Parker et al 2017 ] and chicken [ Núñez-León et al 2019 ]), this will be notoriously difficult to achieve.…”

Assessing evolutionary and developmental transcriptome dynamics in homologous cell types

“…49–51 Moreover, selection for a variety of integumentary traits in domesticated chickens might have accentuated this trend further. 52…”

“…[49][50][51] Moreover, selection for a variety of integumentary traits in domesticated chickens might have accentuated this trend further. 52 In terms of 'density' and 'connectivity', module 'green' showed the overall highest degree of conservation, both for mouse and chicken samples (Fig. 3 B, C, Supplement 2).…”

Stable integration of an optimized inducible promoter system enables spatiotemporal control of gene expression throughout avian development

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