A phylogenomic approach makes it possible to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the Gallus genus (and to identify hybrids).

The evolutionary history of the genus Gallus, which contains the hen, has been the subject of numerous studies that have resulted in incompatible phylogenetic trees. The genus consists of 4 wild species of Roosters: the Wild or Golden Rooster (Gallus gallus, Southeast Asia), the Sonnerat Rooster (Gallus sonneratii, India), the Lafayette Rooster (Gallus lafayettii, Sri Lanka) and the Java Rooster (Gallus varius, Indonesia). Previous studies suggest that the ancestral connection concerns either the Wild Rooster (Scenario A) or the Rooster of Java (Scenario B). However, they suffer from limitations: often only one bird per species, few genes, etc.

In an article published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, researchers at the INRAE of Jouy-en-Josas (Unité INRAE MaIAGE and Unité INRAE/AgroParisTech/UPSaclay GABI) have sequenced the complete genome of several birds of each species, either from their natural environment or from zoological parks, and constructed a set of 33 million markers to infer the tree. It turns out that the park-derived Coq de Sonnerat are actually Coq Sonnerat (~90%) / Wild Rooster (~10%) hybrids with hybridization dating back 200 years, which disrupts phylogenetic analyses. Depending on the method of inference and the set of markers used, one finds scenario A or B, each time with absolute certainty. The quantification of gene flows between species produces outliers under scenario B and ultimately allows the choice of scenario A.

Contact : michele.tixier-boichard@inrae.fr

Mahendra Mariadassou, Marie Suez, Sathya Sathyakumar, Alain Vignal, Mariangela Arca, Pierre Nicolas, Thomas Faraut, Diane Esquerré, Masahide Nishibori, Agathe Vieaud, Chih-Feng Chen, Hung Manh Pham, Yannick Roman, Frédéric Hospital, Tatiana Zerjal, Xavier Rognon, Michèle Tixier-Boichard,
Unraveling the history of the genus Gallus through whole genome sequencing. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 2020, 107044,
ISSN 1055-7903, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2020.107044. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105579032030316X)

Modification date: 27 October 2023 | Publication date: 26 January 2021 | By: UMR GABI

Name of the cookie	Purpose	Shelf life
CAS and PHP session cookies	Login credentials, session security	Session
Tarteaucitron	Saving your cookie consent choices	12 months

Name of the cookie	Purpose	Shelf life
atid	Trace the visitor's route in order to establish visit statistics.	13 months
atuserid	Store the anonymous ID of the visitor who starts the first time he visits the site	13 months
atidvisitor	Identify the numbers (unique identifiers of a site) seen by the visitor and store the visitor's identifiers.	13 months

A phylogenomic approach makes it possible to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the Gallus genus (and to identify hybrids).

See also