Integrative Poultry Biology: Current Approaches and Prospects for France-taiwan Collaboration

Few results are yet available for integrative biology in chickens. The purpose of this paper is to present some of the studies done in the France-Taiwan collaborative programmes in the framework of integrating data on population history, DNA polymorphisms and performance. The first programme involves the characterization of genetic diversity of chicken breeds using molecular markers, the second programme focuses on the molecular study of a feather colour gene in connection with variability of plumage colour, and the third programme deals with the study of genotype x environment interactions on egg production. Then the general properties of network analysis are briefly described in order to open the discussion towards the potential usefulness of this approach for animal breeding.