The Genomics of Feralisation and the regulation of iridescent structural colour variation in the chicken
Prof. Dominic Wright
Linköping University
Feralisation occurs when a domestic population is returned to the wild, escaping the cultivated settings it has been selected for, and has been considered as the reverse of domestication. The radical shifts in social, biotic and abiotic environments results in greatly increased natural and sexual selection. Using populations of feral chickens from Bermuda and the Hawaiian Islands, we have mapped selective sweeps to identify regions that are unique to feralisation selection across these different populations.
To then identify the actual causal genes that underlie these regions of selection, we have also conducted Genome Wide Association studies for traits ranging from behaviour to morphology and finally to gene expression and DNA methylation. In this presentation I will discuss recent results for QTL for iridescent structural colour variation, and other traits related to feralisation.
