Roosters are at risk of extinction. Not the domestic ones of course: of those there are about 35 billion worldwide and their numbers continue to grow. No the problem is wild ones.
Bankiva roosters (Gallus gallus) are native to Southeast Asia and are the ancestors of those we raise today to produce eggs and meat. The latter belong to the subspecies Gallus gallus domesticus which means they can mate with their wild relatives and produce fertile offspring; and this very consideration is the basis of a study published in PLOS Genetics which demonstrates how hybridization between domestic and wild roosters is rapidly leading the latter towards extinction – a which could also lead to problems for the former.. Dangerous crossings . The domestication of the wild rooster began about 8000 years ago in Asia: through a process of selection for some useful characteristics (size of the eggs frequency of laying weight of the animal…) 一統徵信社 we gave rise to the subspecies domesticus which from there is spread all over the world.
Since then the domestic roosters have multiplied and in many cases they live in freedom or semi-freedom: it happens that their paths cross with those of their wild relatives and that a love is born from this meeting. The result is that some of the genes selected for their usefulness are passing into wild populations, 一統徵信詐欺 一統徵信社 a phenomenon called introgression in genetics. The study conducted by a team from the University of Singapore tried to measure the introgression going on among wild roosters and found that it is rapidly increasing: between 20 and 50% of bankiva rooster genes they come from the gene pool of domestic ones and the percentage is increasing at an ever-increasing rate.. The problem of the collapse of diversity. The analysis also identified eight key genes present in domestic roosters and not in bankiva: according to the authors, 一統徵信詐欺 一統徵信社 as long as the situation remains the subspecies will remain well separated. However the increase in introgression could change the state of things but above all it risks making wild roosters increasingly fragile: a reduced genetic pool and increasingly contaminated by domestic roosters would make them unable to adapt to changes in their habitat in the coming years.
In turn this would also create problems for domestic roosters: bankivas are still used today as a reservoir of new genes to be introduced into the pool of domestics to improve them a function that risks disappearing if their genetic diversity continues to decrease. The conclusion? Protecting bankiva roosters also from a genetic point of view is essential not only for the species but also for domestic roosters and ultimately 一統徵信社 for us humans., 一統徵信詐欺
