Lack of introgression of Japanese quail in a captive population of common quail

Leonida Fusani,Balint Boglarka,Valeria Marasco,Ines Sanchez-Donoso,Steve Smith

doi:10.1007/s10344-018-1209-7

Abstract

Farm-reared quails are released to the wild in Europe in vast numbers every year to increase hunting bag quotas. Experimental studies indicate that rather than the native common quail (Coturnix coturnix), the restocking is often done with domestic Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) or with hybrids of domestic Japanese quail and common quail. Such practices are thought to be a severe threat for the native species as it could lead to introgression of domestic Japanese quail alleles into the wild common quail genome and potentially alter the migratory and reproductive behaviour in wild populations. In this study, we assessed the genetic purity of a captive population of common quail that was established from wild-caught founders caught on the Southern Italian coast in Sicily (Italy). We evaluated the proportion of ancestry to common and Japanese quail in this captive population via genetic screening using nuclear microsatellite markers and mitochondrial DNA analyses. We showed that the captive farm quail in our study had no sign of admixture with domestic Japanese quail and had similar genotype frequencies relative to wild common quail, confirming the success of the breeding programme for the native species. We propose that raising common quails in captivity for restocking purposes rather than domestic Japanese quails or hybrids would be a feasible alternative that could minimise the risk of genetic pollution of wild common quail populations.

Highlights

Captive breeding and restocking is one of the most common practices in wildlife conservation and management
We genetically compared the farm quails with two distinct reference populations: (1) domestic Japanese quails (n = 23) obtained from a captive population maintained in the Zoology Department at the University of Glasgow (UK) originating from fertile eggs purchased from a commercial breeder (Moonridge farm, Scotland, UK) and (2) wild common quails (n = 20) captured between May–June across multiple years (2005, 2008, 2010, and 2011) and across different regions in Spain— these birds were previously identified as common quail on the basis of their song and phenotype
We evaluated for the first time the genetic origin of a captive population of farmed quail maintained since 2008 in the Istituto Sperimentale Zootecnico per la Sicilia

Summary

Introduction

Captive breeding and restocking is one of the most common practices in wildlife conservation and management. The common or European quail (Coturnix coturnix) is a migratory galliform distributed across a large breeding range in Eurasia extending from Portugal and Ireland east to the Urals, south of the 60th parallel North (Guyomarc’h et al 1998; Guyomarc’h 2003; Perennou 2009). Due to known captive breeding difficulties for wild-caught common quail compared to the domestic Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica)—e.g. low egg fertility (Sanchez-Donoso et al 2012, VM personal observation)—restocking has often been performed with domestic lines of Japanese quail, or hybrids of different generations produced from crosses between wild common quail and domestic Japanese quail The crossing of the two species to obtain individuals for

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion