1. The genetic diversity and population structure were studied for eight local chicken breeds, including Anjiyan (AN), Hetian Black (HH), Hetian Ma (HM), Aheqi (AH), Baicheng You (BC), Hejing (HJ), Tashkurghan (TS) and Ruoqiang (RQ), in the Southern Xinjiang region of China, using 20 microsatellite markers. 2. Total 336 alleles were obtained from all chicken breeds, with a mean of 16.8 alleles per locus. The polymorphism information content ranged from 0.444 to 0.911, with a mean of 0.729 and almost all of the loci showed significant deviation from Hardy-Weinberg standards. The observed and expected heterozygosity of the eight breeds ranged from 0.5 to 0.677 and from 0.656 to 0.774, with the lowest observed in the AN and the highest in BC breed. The average breed genetic diversity was 0.655 for AN and 0.766 for BC chickens. 3. According to the neighbour-joining (NJ) method, three main clusters were identified in the NJ phylogenetic tree with AN and RQ breeds in one clade, HH and HM breeds in the second clade and TS, HJ, AH and BC breeds in the third clade. 4. Based on STRUCTURE analysis, the most likely cluster number of all breeds was K = 4, whereby HH and HM breeds formed one cluster and AH, BC, HJ and TS formed another, and RQ, AN chicken formed their own distinct cluster. These results indicated that HH and HM breeds had similar genetic background, as did the breeds of AH, BC, HJ and TS. RQ, AN breed had unique genetic backgrounds, distinct from the other breeds. Genetic introgression was detected from AN to HH and HM. 5. The results of the current study can be used as baseline genetic information to implement effective conservation programs and to make better use of these local chicken breeds, especially for the AN, RQ and TS breeds.
Keywords: Chicken breeds; genetic diversity; heterozygosity; hybridisation; population structure.