China News Network, Kunming, June 28. The Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences website recently released research results. The researchers found that southwestern China, northern Thailand, Myanmar and other regions are likely to be the origin and domestication center of domestic chickens. The research results were recently published online in the journal "Cell Research".
Domestication of domesticated animals has promoted the transformation of human life style from hunting to animal husbandry. It is an important part of the Neolithic agricultural revolution and one of the important symbols of the progress of human social civilization. Explaining the origin and domestication of domestic animals, the effective protection and utilization of domestic animals, as well as understanding the evolutionary history of humans and the occurrence of diseases are of great significance.
Domestic chickens are one of the earliest domesticated birds. According to different needs, humans have cultivated hundreds of chicken breeds for different purposes, such as laying hens and broilers for food, fighting cocks for entertainment, and ornamental Ornamental chicken and so on. So far, domestic chickens have the widest breeding range and the largest number, and their number even exceeds the sum of other domestic animals. Therefore, chickens have played an important role in the national economy and human society.
However, so far, there is still no definitive conclusion about the basic question of when and where chickens originated. Although it has been determined that the red chicken is the main ancestor of domestic chickens, the red chicken is divided into five subspecies. It is unclear to which subspecies of red chicken the chicken originated. Different studies have drawn different conclusions based on different research materials, molecular markers, and methods. It is currently believed that South Asia, Southeast Asia, and North China may all be the origin of chickens.
In order to systematically analyze the origin and domestication of domestic chickens, the research team of Zhang Yaping and Wu Dongdong of the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and researchers at home and abroad, after years of hard work, obtained genomic data and distribution of all five red chicken subspecies Whole-genome data of chickens in Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, East Asia, Europe and other regions, through a large number of population genetic analysis, found that chickens are not the independent origins that were previously thought to be multi-sites, and India, northern China, etc. are not the origin of chickens Ground.
Domestic chickens are domesticated from the Gallus gallus spadiceus subspecies of the original red chicken. At present, Gallus gallus spadiceus subspecies is mainly distributed in southwest China, northern Thailand, Myanmar and other regions, indicating that this area is likely to be the domestication center of domestic chickens.
The researchers further analyzed the effect of artificial selection in the chicken genome and found that a large number of reproductive-related genes were subjected to artificial selection in domestication of chickens, further supporting human domestication to promote changes in the reproductive behavior of domestic animals.
The study, titled 863 genomes reveal the origin and domestication of chicken, was published online in the journal "Cell Research", and at the same time, "Science" magazine published the title "The chicken first crossed the road in Southeast Asia,'landmark' gene The review article "study finds" systematically introduces the research results. (Finish)