Yurlov Crower - Genetic Analysis

Genetic Analysis

The breed was included in the studies of genetic diversity and relationships between various chicken breeds:

• Moiseyeva et al. (1994)
• Nikiforov et al. (1998)
• Romanov and Weigend (2001)
• Semyenova et al. (2002)
• Moiseyeva et al. (2003)
• Hillel et al. (2003)

The latter study was done in 1998—2000 within the framework of an international research project entitled «Development of Strategy and Application of Molecular Tools to Assess Biodiversity in Chicken Genetic Resources», or shortly AVIANDIV, that was sponsored by European Commission and co-ordinated by Dr. Steffen Weigend, of the Institute for Animal Breeding, Mariensee, Germany.

The AVIANDIV project employed anonymous genetic markers, so called microsatellite loci spread across the whole genome. It was shown that 33 populations had no unique alleles, 14 populations had one unique allele, but the Yurlov Crower from Russia has 8 unique alleles. Interestingly, that the Ukrainian population of Yurlov Crowers did not have any unique alleles, that is, had remarkably different genetic features. Overall, the Russian Yurlov Crower population became one of three the most diverse, or polymorphic, populations in the study, along with a wild red junglefowl population and a broiler dam line.