Evaluation of Indian fowl populations for mutation drift equilibrium

Abstract

Microsatellite data on 25 di-nucleotide loci were generated for 15 Indian fowl populations. All the microsatellite loci selected cover the entire genome, unlinked and highly polymorphic. The number of alleles varied from 8 to 25. Three quantitative tests, Sign Rank, Standardized Difference and Wilcoxon Rank tests and a qualitative test for mode shift distortion of allelic frequencies, were utilized to detect the genetic bottleneck in all the 3 microsatellite evolution models. All the populations except Nicobari and Rarringhata Black were in mutation drift equilibrium. Conservation efforts are needed for these 2 fowl populations to save them from extinction.