• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.1783-1790
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• 2007

The genetic diversity of domestic quail and two wild quail species, Japanese （Coturnix coturnix）and Common quail (Coturnix japonica), found in China was studied using microsatellite DNA markers. According to a comparison of the corresponding genetic indices in the three quail populations, such as Polymorphism Information Content (PIC), Mean Heterozygosity ($\bar{H}$) and Fixation Index, wild Common quail possessed rich genetic diversity with 4.67 alleles per site. Its values for PIC and $\bar{H}$ were the highest, 0.5732 and 0.6621, respectively. Domestic quail had the lowest values, 0.5467 and 0.5933, respectively. Wild Japanese quail had little difference in genetic diversity from domestic quail. In addition, from analyses of the fuzzy cluster based on standard genetic distance, the similarity relationship matrix coefficient between wild Japanese quail and domestic quail was 0.937, and that between wild Common quail and domestic quail was 0.783. All of these results showed that the wild Japanese quail were closer to the domestic quail for phylogenetic relationship than wild Common quail. These results at the molecular level provide useful data about quail's genetic background and further supported the hypothesis that the domestic quail originated from the wild Japanese quail.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.1421-1423
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• 2003

Cross fertility between wild Japanese quail and domestic quail was explored in an experiment conducted on 18（3♂, 15♀）wild Japanese quails in Weishan Lake area, 18（3♂, 15♀）medium-sized domestic quails and 18（3♂, 15♀）pint-sized domestic quails, which were divided into nine groups. This study demonstrated that wild quail could succeed in crossing with domestic quail,producing fertilized eggs and hatching first filial generation. The findings indicated that there were no reproduction isolation between the wild Japanese quail and domestic quail, and that the best cross combination was between wild male quail and medium-sized domestic female quail, in which the fertility rate and hatchability of fertilized eggs amounted to 42.86% and 29.63% respectively. Based on the results, a new way could be adopted to protect, exploit and utilize genetic resources of wild quail.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.603-607
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• 2001

This paper is based on the 36 wild Japanese quails which migrated to and settled in the Weishan Lake area. The gene frequency of 10 loci encoding the enzymes in viscera and muscle was detected. After collecting the same data about 20 quail colonies in China and other countries, it clusters the 21 quail populations by fuzzy cluster analysis. The study indicates that the wild Japanese quail in the Weishan Lake area is closer to domestic quail for phylogenetic system than wild Japanese quails in Japanese Islands. The paper supports the thesis that the quail domestication area should be further studied.