Meeting Abstract

110.1  Sunday, Jan. 6  Genomic and developmental basis of diversity in the domestic pigeon DOMYAN, ET; KRONENBERG, Z; VICKREY, AI; YANDELL, M; SHAPIRO, MD*; Univ. of Utah; Univ. of Utah; Univ. of Utah; Univ. of Utah; Univ. of Utah shapiro@biology.utah.edu

Domestic pigeons are spectacularly diverse and exhibit variation in more traits than any other bird species. Despite intense historical interest in pigeon genetics, little is known about the molecular basis of their vast diversity. We used genome-wide scans of allele frequency differentiation and a probabilistic gene-finder to identify regions of the pigeon genome associated with derived traits. Strikingly, one such scan revealed a shared haplotype in all pigeons with derived head crest phenotypes, suggesting that a causative mutation occurred just once and spread to multiple breeds by ancient and recent introgression. A single shared variant is perfectly associated with the crest phenotype across 79 diverse breeds of domestic pigeon, and is therefore a convincing candidate for the crest (cr) locus of classical pigeon genetics. This locus appears to act as a developmental switch for the trait, but the tremendous variation in crest phenotypes suggests that other loci must contribute as well.