Assessment of genetic relatedness between Hill fowl and four chicken breeds using microsatellite markers

Within breed as well as between breed genetic diversity in five breeds of chicken namely Hill fowl (HF), Rhode Island Red (RIR), Kadaknath (KN), White Leghorn (WL) and White Cornish (WC), was evaluated by using the polymorphism detected at 17 polymorphic microsatellite loci. Within population genetic similarity estimates were moderate and ranged from 0.500 (KN) to 0.614 (HF), based on the polymorphism across all the microsatellite loci. The genetic similarity between populations was high and ranged from 0.674 between WLH and KN to 0.854 between RIR and WC across all loci. Genetic distances were low between the breeds and ranged from 0.180 between RIR and WC to 0.494 between RIR and WL. Hence present study reveals sizable within population genetic variability in all chicken breeds including hill fowl. Though, Hill fowl showed high genetic similarity with all other breeds, but it have highest genetic similarity with a meat type bird i.e. White Cornish and least with the Indian native breed i.e. KN.