Genetic status of indigenous poultry (red jungle fowl) from India.

The global biodiversity of domesticated red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) is gradually eroding by replacement with commercial poultry breeds and results loss of valuable genetic and physical traits like resistance to disease, extreme environment, etc. posing a threat to the poultry genetic resources. Very fewer reports exist on Indian poultry diversity, especially native chicken of India. Therefore, species identification and inventorying of the poultry genetic resource is indispensable. Thus, the present study aimed to characterize indigenous chicken from bio-diversity hotspot of Sunderban and Northeast India using DNA sequence based barcoding approach. A total of 15 CO1 (Cytochrome c Oxidase-I) DNA barcode of different indigenous chicken were newly sequenced along with 6 previously published sequences from our laboratory and compared with the available data of distinctive genera of Phasianidae as per the standard protocol and are identified as Gallus gallus. About 98.96% of the Phasianid birds were successfully delimitated into the respective species except for 12 congeneric pairs whose minimum interspecific K2P (Kimura 2-parameter) distance overlaps with the maximum intraspecific distance (3.9%). The least genetic divergence is observed between G. gallus and G. varius (0.013%) and highest between G. gallus and G. lafayettei (0.059%). The NJ tree showed a cohesive clustering of indigenous chicken with G. gallus and distinct with respect to all the different species under study, thereby revealing their taxonomic position except for few G. sonneratti that showed mixed clustering with G. gallus. This may be due to the genetic introgression between the species. Nevertheless, the study for the first time provided the molecular identification tag of indigenous poultry from biodiversity hotspot of East and Northeast India and will remain as a potential guide to recognize inimitable and valuable poultry genetic resources for future needs.

Genetic assessment of leech species from yak (Bos grunniens) in the tract of Northeast India.

Yak is an iconic symbol of Tibet and high altitudes of Northeast India. It is highly cherished for milk, meat, and skin. However, yaks suffer drastic change in milk production, weight loss, etc, when infested by parasites. Among them, infestation by leeches is a serious problem in the Himalayan belt of Northeast India. The parasite feeds on blood externally or from body orifices, like nasopharynx, oral, rectum, etc. But there has been limited data about the leech species infesting the yak in that region because of the difficulties in morphological identification due to plasticity of the body, changes in shape, and surface structure and thus, warrants for the molecular characterization of leech. In anticipation, this study would be influential in proper identification of leech species infesting yak track and also helpful in inventorying of leech species in Northeast India. Here, we investigated, through combined approach of molecular markers and morphological parameters for the identification of leech species infesting yak. The DNA sequences of COI barcode fragment, 18S and 28S rDNA, were analyzed for species identification. The generated sequences were subjected to similarity match in global database and analyzed further through Neighbour-Joining, K2P distance based as well as ML approach. Among the three markers, only COI was successful in delineating species whereas the 18S and 28S failed to delineate the species. Our study confirmed the presence of the species from genus Hirudinaria, Haemadipsa, Whitmania, and one species Myxobdella annandalae, which has not been previously reported from this region.