2011 Volume 48 Issue 2 Pages 79-84
Ancient Egyptians used pigeons not only as food in the form of squab but also as a messenger by virtue of their strong homing ability. Pigeons are bred for many purposes like meat in the form of squabs, exhibition as fancy and ornamental, flying and sports like racing competition, and finally for laboratory experiments of cognitive sciences. In this study, a total of 133 pigeon samples of six Egyptian breeds (n=110) and Japanese racing pigeons (n=23) were surveyed. One sample from each breed was sequenced for mitochondrial COI gene and all samples were genotyped across 11 microsatellites loci. From COI sequence, all the seven studied populations were found to belong to same the species (Columba livia). By the analysis of 11 microsatellite loci a total of 89 alleles were observed with an average of 8.1 alleles per locus. The expected heterozygosities of the six Egyptian breeds and Japanese racing pigeons were 0.580 and 0.630, respectively. FST showed a relatively high mean of 0.203 which indicated that there is a great differentiation among the seven pigeon populations. Zagel breed and Japanese racing pigeons showed the lowest values for both pairwise FST (0.108) and Nei's genetic distance (0.154). The information from this study would be useful for genetic characterization and provide a foundation for developing sustainable genetic improvement and conservation programs of this agriculturally and commercially important species.
