Poultry Genetic Resources and Conservation Biology

Recent generations of poultry students and poultry specialists generally seem to lack awareness of the vast genetic diversity which has accumulated in the domestic birds. This diversity has tended to become segregated within the realms of special purpose and special group such as industrial breeders and producers. There are many variants and variation in relation to species, body systems, and production parameters in birds. We have to, therefore, consider poultry genetic resources in a more general way, to think how they have evolved and accumlated, and to contemplate their future. Conservation and preservation of avian resources against future needs has bocome a topic of the most important concerns. It may also be pertinent to consider the topic here in relation to past and present genetic resources and with regards to perceived needs for the future. Concerning the above-mentioned matters, one of the most recent research trends in the poultry science seems to be the conservation of avian genetic resources, including the preservation of germ cells, spermatozoa and ova. Hitherto, many of the poultry scientists had a tendency to devote to the improvement of economical efficiency for egg production in the poulty industry. For this purpose, they tried to create as higher egg production rate as possible by means of genetic selection of the breeding stocks. On the one hand, another research fashion in the poultry breedidng is likely to be of statistical analysis using selection index, in particular, marker-assisted selection (MAS) method thereby selecting useful beneficial genes for the production of higher performance birds (MIYATA,1998). These qualified techniques for poultry breeding are widely accepted by commercial breeders specific for chickens, turkeys, quails, ducks and ether domestic birds. CHANG the viewpoints here, avian germ cells, including spermatozoa and ova, have basically been the target for producing better offsprings from generations to generations, improving the performance of each birds. With reference to the genetic resource conservation, the artitificial insemination