Analysis of Genetic Diversity in Iranian West Azerbaijan Native Fowl Using Pedigree Data

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the genetic structure and diversity of 16 generations of native fowls of West Azerbaijan Province, Iran using the pedigree data collected between 1994 and 2012. Inbreeding coefficient (F), pedigree completeness index (PCI), parameters of the probability of gene origin and other parameters related to the genetic structure were estimated using the pedigree data of 51125 chickens. The mean PCI for up to 3 and 16 generations was 0.798 and 0.365 in the whole population, and 0.951 and 0.448 for the inbred population respectively, showing the sufficient depth of the pedigree and higher amounts of PCI for the inbred population. The total number of animals in 16 generations was 51125 chickens (F=3.07%); and the number of sires and dams was 1352 (F=2.247%) and 6863 (F=2.71%), respectively. The number of inbred chickens, sires, and dams in the population was 40751, 634, and 4429, respectively. Despite the large number of inbred animals in the population, the inbreeding average was not so high in different generations. Thus, it may be concluded that there is a suitable potential for line-crossing to help with maintaining genetic diversity in the population. The highest percentage of line-crossing was observed in the 6th (15.2%), 8th (13.81%) and 10th (10.71%) generations and its lowest percentage was in the 12th generation (1.59%). All parameters of the probability of gene origin had a decreasing trend in the studied generations, and the value of the non-founder genome equivalents was higher than the effective number of founders after base generations (after the third generation). Therefore, genetic bottleneck and random genetic drift may be the main causes of genetic diversity loss in this population.