Integrating Genetic and Genomic Analyses of Combined Health Data Across Ecotypes to Improve Disease Resistance in Indigenous African Chickens
Abstract
Poultry play an important role in the agriculture of many African countries. The majority of chickens in sub-Saharan Africa are indigenous, raised in villages under semi-scavenging conditions. Vaccinations and biosecurity measures rarely apply, and infectious diseases remain a major cause of mortality and reduced productivity. Genomic selection for disease resistance offers a potentially sustainable solution but this requires sufficient numbers of individual birds with genomic and phenotypic data, which is often a challenge to collect in the small populations of indigenous chicken ecotypes. The use of information across-ecotypes presents an attractive possibility to increase the relevant numbers and the accuracy of genomic selection. In this study, we performed a joint analysis of two distinct Ethiopian indigenous chicken ecotypes to investigate the genomic architecture of important health and productivity traits and explore the feasibility of conducting genomic selection across-ecotype. Phenotypic traits considered were antibody response to Infectious Bursal Disease (IBDV), Marek's Disease (MDV), Fowl Cholera (PM) and Fowl Typhoid (SG), resistance to Eimeria and cestode parasitism, and productivity [body weight and body condit...Continue Reading