Genetic variation and phylogenetic relationships among 76 birds belonging to Indian Red Jungle Fowl (RJF) and three domestic chicken breeds viz. one Indian native sport breed, Aseel (AS) and two global high yielding breeds of egg type, White Leghorn (WL) and meat type, Red Cornish (RC) were evaluated using Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) markers. A total of 318 scorable dominant AFLP bands in the range of 50-500 bp using 20 EcoRI/TaqI primer combinations were detected across

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... tions. The mean number of polymorphic bands across all four populations was 15.5 per primer combination. Species-specific bands were also found in all populations except WL. Nei's gene diversity was measured between RJF and domestic chickens and it was significantly higher in RJF population (0.309) as compared to the domestic chicken populations of AS (0.129), WL (0.067) and RC (0.066). RJF showed maximum genetic distance with RC (0.221) and minimum with AS (0.177) population. The divergence between RJF and domestic chicken was observed by constructing an UPGMA dendrogram. RJF was present in one cluster and whereas the three domestic chickens were tightly clustered in another group. This clustering pattern was also confirmed by principal component analysis (PCA). The estimate of genetic identities (GI) and genetic distances (GD) using Nei (1972) also suggest comparatively more closeness of RJF with AS (an Indian native chicken breed) than those of commercial breeds WL and RC. These results support the earlier understanding that chicken was first domesticated for game purpose rather than as food.