Abstract
Chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) from the Americas have long been recognized as descendants of European chickens, transported by early Europeans since the fifteenth century. However, in recent years, a possible pre-Columbian introduction of chickens to South America by Polynesian seafarers has also been suggested. Here, we characterize the mitochondrial control region genetic diversity of modern chicken populations from South America and compare this to a worldwide dataset in order to investigate the potential maternal genetic origin of modern-day chicken populations in South America. The genetic analysis of newly generated chicken mitochondrial control region sequences from South America showed that the majority of chickens from the continent belong to mitochondrial haplogroup E. The rest belongs to haplogroups A, B and C, albeit at very low levels. Haplogroup D, a ubiquitous mitochondrial lineage in Island Southeast Asia and on Pacific Islands is not observed in continental South America. Modern-day mainland South American chickens are, therefore, closely allied with European and Asian chickens. Furthermore, we find high levels of genetic contributions from South Asian chickens to those in Europe and South America. Our findings demonstrate that modern-day genetic diversity of mainland South American chickens appear to have clear European and Asian contributions, and less so from Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Furthermore, there is also some indication that South Asia has more genetic contribution to European chickens than any other Asian chicken populations.
Highlights
The domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is the world’s most ubiquitous and important bird species
That study indicates that despite the global movement of chicken during modern times, the genetic patterns from the initial translocation can still be inferred. We extend both the South American and comparative sampling of the previous study to characterize the contemporary mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region (CR) DNA data from South America and compare to other chicken populations from across the globe
Blood samples were collected from a total of 229 native chickens from four South American countries: 30 from Brazil, 60 from Chile, 129 from Colombia and 10 from Peru
Summary
The domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is the world’s most ubiquitous and important bird species. It represents one of the main sources of animal protein around the world, it plays a major role in global food security. Domestication probably involved the selection of desired traits and behaviour from a wild red junglefowl (RJF) progenitor (Gallus gallus). There are indications that this process included hybridization of the red and grey junglefowls (Gallus sonneratti) [2]. This complexity reflects the uncoordinated nature of many domestication events performed by early human cultures. The subsequent translocation of the domestic chicken out of their domestication centres is nuanced by the protracted and complex movements (diaspora and trade) of humans across the globe, including those during the modern era
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