Gene Constitution of Morphological Characters of Native Chickens in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province, China

Abstract

Plumage, shank color and comb shape of 617 native chickens were recorded at four ethnic settlements in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China. The frequencies of genes controlling these morphological characters were calculated from the phenotypes of all 617 birds observed. In all settlements, the frequency of dominant white (I) was low, whereas the frequencies of wild type (e⁺) for the extended black locus (E, e⁺, e) were highest. The gene frequencies of shank color (Id, id) and comb type (P, p) changed in relation to the ethnicity of the human residents.