Revisiting the evolutionary history of domestic and wild ducks based on genomic analyses
Xing Guo, 安徽农业大学安徽省地方畜禽遗传资源保护与生物育种重点实验室，安徽 合肥 230036，中国, Xinxin He, Hong Chen, Zhicheng Wang, Huifang Li, Jiangxian Wang, Mingshan Wang, Runshen Jiang, 中国农业科学院江苏省家禽科学研究所，江苏 扬州 230036，中国
Abstract
Although domestic ducks have been important poultry species throughout human history, their origin remains enigmatic, with mallards and/or Chinese spot-billed ducks being proposed as the direct wild ancestor(s) of domestic ducks. Here, we analyzed 118 whole genomes from mallard, Chinese spot-billed, and domestic ducks to reconstruct their evolutionary history. We found pervasive introgression patterns among these duck populations. Furthermore, we showed that domestic ducks separated from mallard and Chinese spot-billed ducks nearly 38 thousand years ago (kya) and 54 kya, respectively, which is considerably outside the time period of presumed duck domestication. Thus, our results suggest that domestic ducks may have originated from another wild duck population that is currently undefined or unsampled, rather than from present-day mallard and/or Chinese spot-billed ducks, as previously thought. Overall, this study provides new insight into the complex evolution of ducks.