Genetic diversity of wild quail in China ascertained with microsatellite DNA markers

The genetic diversity of domestic quail and two wild quail species, Japanese (Coturnix coturnix) and Common quail (Coturnix japonica), found in China was studied using microsatellite DNA markers. According to a comparison of the corresponding genetic indices in the three quail populations, such as Polymorphism Information Content (PIC), Mean Heterozygosity (17) and Fixation Index, wild Common quail possessed rich genetic diversity with 4.67 alleles per site. Its values for PIC and H were the highest, 0.5732 and 0.6621, respectively. Domestic quail had the lowest values, 0.5467 and 0.5933, respectively. Wild Japanese quail had little difference in genetic diversity from domestic quail. In addition, from analyses of the fuzzy cluster based on standard genetic distance, the similarity relationship matrix coefficient between wild Japanese quail and domestic quail was 0.937, and that between wild Common quail and domestic quail was 0.783. All of these results showed that the wild Japanese quail were closer to the domestic quail for phylogenetic relationship than wild Common quail. These results at the molecular level provide useful data about quail's genetic background and further supported the hypothesis that the domestic quail originated from the wild Japanese quail.