Identifying Populations of Papua New Guinea’s Indigenous Chicken for priority Conservation.

Abstract

The possible decline in genetic diversity of Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) indigenous chickens and its consequences for food production and other concerns has necessitated a discussion of measures to conserve this genetic resource. As an initial step to investigate the genetic diversity and provide a theoretical basis for a conservation program of PNG’s indigenous chickens, calculation and analyses of genetic diversities were carried out in this study using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) D-loop sequence variations in three populations of indigenous chickens. The results indicate that all of the Alotau, Madang and Port Moresby chicken populations in PNG have unique haplotypes and high genetic diversity. Priority for conservation of these populations has been suggested on the basis of their contributions to genetic diversity.