Application of microsatellite analysis to group chicken according to theirgenetic similarity

When estimating genetic variability of groups of local chicken from Nigeria we had to deal with the problem that the groups could not be regarded as d istinct breeds or strains. The original sample groups obviously just repres ent individuals sampled in the same geographical region. The aim was to arr ange these chicken in new groups according to their genetic similarity. The refore 60 chicken from Nigeria and 10 Dahlem Reds (RIR) were genotyped at 2 0 microsatellite loci. In order to build up new groups "allele sharing" was calculated as the proportion of shared alleles between each pair of indivi duals and was used to construct a dendrogram of all individuals including D ahlem Reds as a reference group which represents a well defined line. All D ahlem Reds clustered in this dendrogram indica,ting that this is an adequat e approach to group individuals according to their common genetic make-up. The Nigerian chicken were arranged in 7 new groups. CHORD genetic distances between these new groups ranged from 0.07 to 0.27 and were higher than the values revealed by the original local sample groups (0.05 - 0.16).