Species Of Jungle Fowl Research Articles

Temminck's Gallus giganteus; a gigantic obstacle to Darwin's theory of domesticated fowl origin?

In 1813, based on the single foot of a large chicken, Temminck named a ‘new' species of junglefowl, Gallus giganteus. He considered this ‘species’ the ancestor of several large domesticated chicken breeds and believed it was one of six wild ancestral species of domestic fowl. Temminck's hypothesis was rejected by Blyth who thought Red Junglefowl G. gallus was the sole ancestor. The arrival into Britain of several very large Asian chicken breeds in the mid-19th century led to speculation that Temminck's G. giganteus may have been their wild ancestor. Darwin, who had initially agreed with Blyth, noted several peculiarities in the Cochin, a large Asian breed, which he concluded might not have been achieved by selective breeding, and questioned whether G. giganteus was involved in their ancestry. Temminck's giant junglefowl appeared to be a significant hurdle for Darwin in his effort to prove a single ancestral origin for domestic chickens.‘My very decided opinion, that we may seek in vain for wild types of G. giganteus' (letter from Blyth to Darwin, 1856).‘We have not such good evidence with fowls as with pigeons, of all breeds having descended from a single primitive stock' (Darwin 1868: 239).

863 genomes reveal the origin and domestication of chicken

Despite the substantial role that chickens have played in human societies across the world, both the geographic and temporal origins of their domestication remain controversial. To address this issue, we analyzed 863 genomes from a worldwide sampling of chickens and representatives of all four species of wild jungle fowl and each of the five subspecies of red jungle fowl (RJF). Our study suggests that domestic chickens were initially derived from the RJF subspecies Gallus gallus spadiceus whose present-day distribution is predominantly in southwestern China, northern Thailand and Myanmar. Following their domestication, chickens were translocated across Southeast and South Asia where they interbred locally with both RJF subspecies and other jungle fowl species. In addition, our results show that the White Leghorn chicken breed possesses a mosaic of divergent ancestries inherited from other subspecies of RJF. Despite the strong episodic gene flow from geographically divergent lineages of jungle fowls, our analyses show that domestic chickens undergo genetic adaptations that underlie their unique behavioral, morphological and reproductive traits. Our study provides novel insights into the evolutionary history of domestic chickens and a valuable resource to facilitate ongoing genetic and functional investigations of the world’s most numerous domestic animal.

Genetic diversity of myanmar and indonesia native chickens together with two jungle fowl species by using 102 indels polymorphisms.

The efficiency of insertion and/or deletion (indels) polymorphisms as genetic markers was evaluated by genotyping 102 indels loci in native chicken populations from Myanmar and Indonesia as well as Red jungle fowls and Green jungle fowls from Java Island. Out of the 102 indel markers, 97 were polymorphic. The average observed and expected heterozygosities were 0.206 to 0.268 and 0.229 to 0.284 in native chicken populations and 0.003 to 0.101 and 0.012 to 0.078 in jungle fowl populations. The coefficients of genetic differentiation (Gst) of the native chicken populations from Myanmar and Indonesia were 0.041 and 0.098 respectively. The genetic variability is higher among native chicken populations than jungle fowl populations. The high Gst value was found between native chicken populations and jungle fowl populations. Neighbor-joining tree using genetic distance revealed that the native chickens from two countries were genetically close to each other and remote from Red and Green jungle fowls of Java Island.

Overview of chicken taxonomy and domestication

Chickens are the most popular poultry worldwide and are now used for both meat and egg production. There is only a sporadic information in the literature on chicken taxonomy; and there is a lack of a single concise document that deals with different issues related to this important topic. The present document contains detailed information on the tree taxonomy of chickens. In addition, process of domestication and its effect on chicken genetic diversity, physiology and behaviour are also discussed. The major conclusions are as follows: 1) Chickens are classified as: order: Galliformes, family: Phasianidae, genus: Gallus (junglefowl). Four species of junglefowl are recognized. These are: a) Gallus gallus (red junglefowl), b) Gallus varius (green junglefowl), c) Gallus sonneratii (grey junglefowl) and d) Gallus lafayetii (Ceylon junglefowl). The current chickens that are used for both meat and egg production commercially are domesticated fowl and are the descendants of the red junglefowl species. 2) Domestication process is a complicated one and involves intensive breeding and selection programmes. During this process, genetic diversity is still maintained, yet reduced, so careful attention is needed in the future to maintain the diversity of specialized chicken species. 3) Domestication resulted in basic changes in the behaviour, physiology and production of the bird, but still there are some similarities between the ancestor and the current chickens.

The evolutionary origin of long-crowing chicken: its evolutionary relationship with fighting cocks disclosed by the mtDNA sequence analysis

Chickens with exceptionally long crow are often favored all over the world, and connoisseur breeders have bred certain types of chicken exclusively for this trait. In Japan, three chicken varieties have been specifically bred to develop an exceptionally long crow of over 15 s. Although these three long-crowing chickens, Naganakidori, are honored as heritage varieties of Japan, the domestication process and genealogical origin of long-crowing chickens remain unclear. The purpose of this study is to clarify these issues using nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial DNA D-loop region. Blood samples from a total of nine long-crowing chickens and 74 chickens from 11 Japanese native varieties were collected. DNA sequence data of two Junglefowl species were also collected from the International DNA database (DDBJ /EMBL/GenBank) for use as the outgroup. A phylogenetic tree was then constructed revealing that all three Naganakidori varieties were monophyletic and originated from a fighting cock, a Shamo, for cockfighting. These results suggest that these three long-crowing chickens share a common origin in spite of their conspicuously different characters, and that human cultures favoring long-crowing chickens might have been preceded by a tradition of cockfighting. Moreover, these long-crowing varieties first separated from the fighting cocks of Okinawa, which is geographically closer to Southern China and Indochina than Mainland Japan (Honshu/Kyushu). This implies that Japanese long-crowing chickens were first brought to Mainland Japan as fighting cocks from the surrounding regions of Southern China or Indochina and through Okinawa.

Comparison of the W Chromosome-linked Female-specific Fragment (EE-0.6) in the Genus Gallus

A female-specific DNA fragment (EE-0.6) exists in the chicken W chromosome and primers have been designed to amplify this area (USP-1, USP-3). Using these primers, we determined sequences of PCR products from the DNA of 4 species of jungle fowl and 2 varieties of domestic fowl as the template and carried out comparisons. We decoded 374 by of the fragment (EE-0.6) and, comparing the decoded sequences, we found that Gallus gallus, domestic fowl (Gifu native fowl. Minorca) and G. sonnerati had the same sequence, while G. lafavettei and G. variesdiffered respectively at the 280th (C→G) and 281st (G→A) positions.

Dominant Red Junglefowl (Gallus Gallus) Hens in an Unconfined Flock Rear the Most Young over Their Lifetime

-The evolutionary success of individuals must ultimately be evaluated in terms of their lifetime contribution of mature young to the breeding population. The greater lifetime breeding success of the more dominant hens in an unconfined flock of Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus) gave crucial evidence why female dominance hierarchies have evolved in this species. The number of chicks reared to independence by 28 hens of one flock from 1982 to 1988 was significantly associated with a hen's dominance, life-span, and year of hatching. Of these, dominance was by far the most important factor. It, by itself, could explain differences in the number of chicks reared as shown by log-linear analysis. This suggests that the associations with life-span and year of hatching may result from the fact that these are correlated with dominance. The top 3 hens in the peck order added more offspring of breeding age to the population than did the remaining 25 adult hens of the flock. Eleven of the 28 hens reared no young successfully. Received 8 March 1993, accepted 2 July 1993. THE DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS in a natural population vary greatly in the numbers of young that they manage to rear successfully, with profound implications for population dynamics and evolution. The purpose of this report is to identify and evaluate some of the important factors that account for this difference among individuals in an unconfined population of Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus), taking into account differences in life-span, age class (year of hatching), and lifetime dominance status of adult hens. Darwin (1887, vol. 1:258) concluded that the Red Junglefowl was the ancestor of the domestic fowl, and much recent evidence accumulated since then has tended to confirm his view (Delacour 1977, Crawford 1990, Stevens 1991). Not all breeds of domestic fowl have been thoroughly investigated from this viewpoint, and it is still considered possible that genes from other species of junglefowl might have been introduced by hybridization in some breeds (Crawford 1990, Stevens 1991). The Red Junglefowl has the special advantage that one may be able to relate behavioral observations to the vast amount of work that has been done on the behavior, physiology, and genetics of domestic fowl. A field study of the behavior of Red Junglefowl in India (Collias and Collias 1967) and a parallel study of an unconfined population at the San Diego Zoo (Collias et al. 1966) showed that the behavior of the birds and the social structure of the population, aside from greater dispersion in nature, were basically and qualitatively similar in the two places. The Red Junglefowl is much hunted by humans and is one of the most wary of game birds (Bump and Bohl 1961). We returned to the zoo population for information on details of behavior of individuals over the adult life-span. This information would have been exceedingly difficult to obtain in the wild, and we feel that the observations on the zoo population generally will be found to apply in the field. We hope that the zoo studies will stimulate and provide some guidance for future studies under the more difficult field conditions. The evolutionary significance of individuals ultimately must be evaluated in terms of their lifetime reproductive success in the population. In recent years there has been an increasing emphasis on the study of lifetime reproductive success in birds. A recent review volume (Newton 1989) summarized long-term studies on 23 species of birds. Despite great differences in body size and life history, in all of these species breeding life-span emerged as the major demographic determinant of lifetime reproductive success when measured as fledgling production. However, where lifetime reproductive success was measured by the number of recruits to local breeding populations rather than by the number of fledglings, life-span contributed much less to variance in lifetime reproductive

Genus specificity and extensive methylation of the W chromosome-specific repetitive DNA sequences from the domestic fowl, Gallus gallus domesticus.

Two female-specific repeating DNA units of 0.6 kilobase pairs (kb) and 1.1 kb, produced by digesting the genomic DNA of the White Leghorn chicken with Xho I, were cloned by inserting them into the Xho I site of an Escherichia coli plasmid vector pACYC177. Two such recombinant plasmids, pAGD0601 and pAGD1101, containing a single 0.6-kb and 1.1-kb sequence, respectively, were used as molecular probes. In situ hybridization of the 3H-probes to the metaphase chromosomes from the female White Leghorn embryos revealed their localization in the W chromosome. Semiquantitative Southern blot hybridization with 32P-probes in excess indicated that the 0.6-kb unit and 1.1-kb unit were repeated approximately 14,000 and 6,000 times, respectively, in the W chromosome. The two units comprised about 46% of the W chromosomal DNA. These two repeating units were found in the female genomes of every line of Gallus g. domesticus tested and in the female genomes of three jungle fowl species (G. gallus, G. sonneratii, and G. varius) but not in three species belonging to other genera in the suborder Galli. Hha I sites in the 0.6-kb and 1.1-kb repeating units were shown to be extensively methylated and a significant fraction of the Hpa II sites in the 0.6-kb repeating units were also shown to be methylated in the female genome of the White Leghorn. Methylation patterns of Hpa II sites in or around the 0.6-kb repeating units examined by the Msp I digestion were similar in the various lines of domestic fowls and the two species of jungle fowls, but G varius (black or green jungle fowl) produced a different pattern of digestion with Msp I.

Phylogenetic studies on the Japanese native breeds of chickens.

Phylogenetic analyses were carried out using 15 Japanese and one Indonesian native breeds of domestic fowl and four species of jungle fowl. Gene frequencies at four blood group and seven electrophoretic loci were examined.The gene frequencies at some loci showed geographical trends, and the frequencies of some alleles were different between the domestic fowl and jungle fowl. The average genetic distances between the domestic fowl and jungle fowl were small for Red Jungle Fowl, intermediate for Gray Jungle Fowl, and very large for Ceylonese and Green Jungle Fowls.Cluster analyses of 15 Japanese native breeds of chickens showed that these breeds could be divided into five groups: the first group consisting of Hinai-dori, Koeyoshi, Tomaru and Shamos; the second of Chabos, Satsuma-dori and Nagoya; the third of Totenko and Onaga-dori; the 4th and 5th of Tosa-jidori and Shokoku, respectively. Indonesian native fowl showed a close relationship to the second group.

Endogenous viral genes are non-essential in the chicken

DNA sequences homologous to the genomes of type C retroviruses are widespread among vertebrates. Ten genetic loci containing endogenous viral DNA sequences have been documented in the white Leghorn chicken alone. Six of these genetic loci are associated with the production of virus or of viral proteins in embryonic fibroblasts (refs 2--4, and S.M.A., L, B. Crittenden and E.G.B., in preparation) and one of the loci may be expressed in the erythroblasts of 5-day-old embryos. The abiquitous presence of endogenous viral genes among vertebrate species and the association of their expression with development of the haematopoietic system in the mouse have led to the proposal that these genes are involved in ontogeny. In addition, the genes may be implicated in oncogenesis as in the case of the AKR mouse in which a high incidence of spontaneous leukaemia is associated with the expression of endogenous murine laukaemia virus genomes. We report here the production of a fertile rooster which lacks avian leukosis virus-related endogenous viral genes and which seems to be completely normal and healthy. Thus, endogenous viral genes are apparently not essential for the normal development of the chicken. An endogenous virus-free state has also been reported for three species of jungle fowl and for the B-type viral genes of the mouse.

GENETICAL STUDIES ON SERUM AMYLASE ISOZYME IN FOWLS

Serum amylase isozyme of various breeds of domestic fowl and four species of jungle fowl was studied from genetico-biochemical aspects. The results are summarized as follows:1) In respect of serum amylase isozyme of domestic fowl, 5 bands were detected on the anode side and among these bands, genetic variations were seen in the bands A and B and the existence of three phenotypes, AA, AB and BB was confirmed. From the results of various mating experiments, these bands A and B were found to be controlled by a pair of co-dominant alleles, Amy-1A and Amy-1B located on autosome.2) As to various breeds of domestic fowl classified per origin or use, frequency of phenotype and gene frequency of serum amylase isozyme were examined. As a result, distinct differences among breeds were observed in the frequency of occurrence. The above results seem to be suggestive of the possibility of studies of breed differentiation in domestic fowl with genes controlling amylase isozyme as markers.3) Serum amylase isozyme of four species of jungle fowl, Gallus gallus, Gallus sonneratii, Gallus varius and Gallus lafayetti was analyzed and compared with that of domestic fowl. As a result, coincidence of the phenotypes of serum amylase isozyme of these jungle fowl with those of domestic fowl was confirmed.