**6.2 Key concerns on loss of indigenous chicken genetic resources**

The concern about loss of IC genetic resources stems from the multifaceted economic, environmental and socio-cultural consequences highlighted by numerous studies [6, 7, 16, 24, 109, 113].


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*Utilization and Conservation of Landrace Chickens of Nigeria: Physical and Performance…*

Conservation of IC genetic resources can be ex situ or in situ or both. Ex situ conservation involves ex situ in vivo which is conservation of genetic resources away from their traditional breeding and production environments or locality as in live animal facilities (zoological gardens, parks, on-station farms) [131, 132], and ex situ cryopreservation which is conservation of genetic materials such as semen, oocytes, embryos, and deoxyribonucleic acids (DNAs) in gene banks [131, 132]. In situ conservation on the other hand is conservation of living genetic resources in their natural habitat or production environment such as on-farm populations or

Animal research stations, parks, and zoological gardens exist in few states in Nigeria but ICs are not currently included in these facilities. Ex situ in vivo facilities face challenges such as inadequate infrastructure, low technical capacity, obsolete legislation, and epileptic funding. Apart from these, ex situ in vivo conservation implies that animals are kept in managed environments such that natural selection may no longer be solely responsible in shaping attributes [105, 132]. Being isolated and with limited gene flow, ex situ in vivo populations express limited genetic diversity with time [105, 132]. Coupled with decreasing census number, they become genetically distinct from the source population [24, 105]. The resulting small effective population, high rate of inbreeding, loss of fitness, reproductive failure, poor fecundity and survivorship lead to high extinction risk [105, 109]. Ex situ conservation in gene banks is an effective means of conserving critical genetic resources from rare and extremely threatened animal species. Large biological materials representing tremendous genetic diversity can be stored in gene banks. These materials are however, none homeostatic entities that do not respond to environmental challenges and so do not undergo natural selection and evolution. Consequently, they reflect only the genetic diversity of the source population at point of collection. Semen, oocytes, DNA, etc. do not reflect the historical, ecological, cultural, traditional, and economic values of the source population and do not fulfill these roles. Furthermore, ex situ conservation runs on sophisticated technology, and infrastructure, high level technical and human resources, and huge capital investments which many third world countries including Nigeria may not afford at present [24, 133]. Despite the many treaties on conservation of biological diversity, the topic of conservation is not a priority in many third world countries battling to

In situ conservation aims to maintain animal populations in original habitats under the management of traditional keepers. In addition to minimizing ecological disruption, it is dynamic, allowing genes to evolve subject to the environment [133]; encourages native production systems, historical, and socio-cultural roles and values [24], livelihood, food security, panmixis, gene flow and biodiversity, natural selection and evolution, and development of adaptive capacity [24, 122, 133]. To be successful, in situ conservation requires the participation of farmers who become owners and managers of the conservation [122, 133]. It must be implemented using community-based management initiatives aimed to enhance IC production and returns, and promote food security. It has been emphasized that substitution of ICs with exotic breeds and adoption of modern technology and breeding practices that enhance productivity of chickens cannot be halted because providing adequate animal food for the increasing human population from finite resources is of primary concern to policy makers and farmers [122, 133]. Furthermore, profit motives drive economic endeavors. Consequently, a convincing instrument that could sway farmers to rear ICs is to provide economic incentives as

**6.3 Schemes to conserve Nigerian indigenous chicken genetic resources**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96580*

community based production facilities [24, 131].

feed increasing human populations [24, 133].

compensation for roles in IC conservation.

*Utilization and Conservation of Landrace Chickens of Nigeria: Physical and Performance… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96580*

#### **6.3 Schemes to conserve Nigerian indigenous chicken genetic resources**

Conservation of IC genetic resources can be ex situ or in situ or both. Ex situ conservation involves ex situ in vivo which is conservation of genetic resources away from their traditional breeding and production environments or locality as in live animal facilities (zoological gardens, parks, on-station farms) [131, 132], and ex situ cryopreservation which is conservation of genetic materials such as semen, oocytes, embryos, and deoxyribonucleic acids (DNAs) in gene banks [131, 132]. In situ conservation on the other hand is conservation of living genetic resources in their natural habitat or production environment such as on-farm populations or community based production facilities [24, 131].

Animal research stations, parks, and zoological gardens exist in few states in Nigeria but ICs are not currently included in these facilities. Ex situ in vivo facilities face challenges such as inadequate infrastructure, low technical capacity, obsolete legislation, and epileptic funding. Apart from these, ex situ in vivo conservation implies that animals are kept in managed environments such that natural selection may no longer be solely responsible in shaping attributes [105, 132]. Being isolated and with limited gene flow, ex situ in vivo populations express limited genetic diversity with time [105, 132]. Coupled with decreasing census number, they become genetically distinct from the source population [24, 105]. The resulting small effective population, high rate of inbreeding, loss of fitness, reproductive failure, poor fecundity and survivorship lead to high extinction risk [105, 109].

Ex situ conservation in gene banks is an effective means of conserving critical genetic resources from rare and extremely threatened animal species. Large biological materials representing tremendous genetic diversity can be stored in gene banks. These materials are however, none homeostatic entities that do not respond to environmental challenges and so do not undergo natural selection and evolution. Consequently, they reflect only the genetic diversity of the source population at point of collection. Semen, oocytes, DNA, etc. do not reflect the historical, ecological, cultural, traditional, and economic values of the source population and do not fulfill these roles. Furthermore, ex situ conservation runs on sophisticated technology, and infrastructure, high level technical and human resources, and huge capital investments which many third world countries including Nigeria may not afford at present [24, 133]. Despite the many treaties on conservation of biological diversity, the topic of conservation is not a priority in many third world countries battling to feed increasing human populations [24, 133].

In situ conservation aims to maintain animal populations in original habitats under the management of traditional keepers. In addition to minimizing ecological disruption, it is dynamic, allowing genes to evolve subject to the environment [133]; encourages native production systems, historical, and socio-cultural roles and values [24], livelihood, food security, panmixis, gene flow and biodiversity, natural selection and evolution, and development of adaptive capacity [24, 122, 133].

To be successful, in situ conservation requires the participation of farmers who become owners and managers of the conservation [122, 133]. It must be implemented using community-based management initiatives aimed to enhance IC production and returns, and promote food security. It has been emphasized that substitution of ICs with exotic breeds and adoption of modern technology and breeding practices that enhance productivity of chickens cannot be halted because providing adequate animal food for the increasing human population from finite resources is of primary concern to policy makers and farmers [122, 133]. Furthermore, profit motives drive economic endeavors. Consequently, a convincing instrument that could sway farmers to rear ICs is to provide economic incentives as compensation for roles in IC conservation.

*Landraces - Traditional Variety and Natural Breed*

d.Globalization and livestock revolution

[23, 117, 122].

ous studies [6, 7, 16, 24, 109, 113].

[6, 108, 109, 111].

migration [24, 127, 128].

chicken production subsector [24].

[23, 109, 129].

genetic resources [111]. Following the adoption of backyard or family poultry that employs exotic breeds, the family local chicken was substantially eliminated [121]. In addition, native chickens have attracted poor economic appeal because only direct use commercial products (without adaptive potentials) have been used in economic assessment of chicken genetic resources [23, 24].

The expanding industrial poultry production coupled with increased farm input costs necessitate that breeds that produce more efficiently are adopted in place of indigenous strains [122–124]. Furthermore, increased globalization of animal production and worldwide movement of germplasm fuel breed replacement against ICs leading to decline and loss in IC genetic resources

Endemic diseases and predators cause the loss of ICs [23, 48] and force many marginal families to discontinue investment in IC production [23]. Culling the best chickens for income and other functions (food, festivals, cultural, religious or ritual practices, i.e., negative selection) [16, 125], without a breeding

e.Disease, Predators, negative selection and cultural practices

programme for their replacement, depletes IC genetic resources.

The concern about loss of IC genetic resources stems from the multifaceted economic, environmental and socio-cultural consequences highlighted by numer-

a.Extinction of native strains and loss of overall genetic diversity and heritable variations with co-adapted genes and gene complexes that may be useful to

**6.2 Key concerns on loss of indigenous chicken genetic resources**

meet breeding goals now and in the long-term [24, 105, 126].

fecundity, and survivorship [105, 122, 126].

b.Depletion of adaptive genes and traits, reduced fitness and evolutionary potentials, resulting in reduced flexibility of future breeding options

c.Limited gene flow between populations, genetic bottleneck, low effective population size and heightened inbreeding, loss of reproductive capacity,

d.Loss of key genetic attributes for chicken production in marginal environments, and in disease and parasite endemic regions [16, 24, 105], resulting in loss of livelihood [24, 109], irreversible social disintegration, and human

e.Loss of cultural identity and pride since ICs are associated with peoples, and tribes, and are integral part of their culture, tradition and wellbeing

f. Loss of valuable animal models for biomedical research and training [24, 130] and loss in country gross domestic product (GDP) accounted for by indigenous

**154**

#### **6.4 Optimum conservation strategy for indigenous chicken genetic resources**

The combination of ex situ and in situ conservation could be optimal for IC genetic resources [24, 109, 133]. Ex situ in vivo conservation could maintain diverse NICs in production and genetic improvement facilities with well-defined improvement programme [23, 109] that aim to preserve heritable variations, prevent fixation of deleterious alleles, and retain high reproductive fitness and adaptive potential [109] while in situ conservation would maintain ICs as on-farm populations. The segregation of conserved and genetic improvement populations will enable a separated but connected programme whereby conserved populations feed genetic improvement while maintaining high genetic diversity to ensure resilience and adaptability [109]. On-farm conservation implemented with well defined, and appropriately valued productive and adaptive traits, with market niches for all potentials, and with well informed, and adequately motivated IC farmers, will serve as reservoir of raw genetic diversity and together with ex situ populations, supply critical materials for conservation in gene banks. To determine appropriate compensation for rearing ICs, the model proposed by [133] for determining compensation for on-farm conservation of landrace crop varieties could be adopted. Using this model, economic incentive or compensation is the difference in net revenue or net profit between IC and exotic chicken production by each participating farmer. A number of national and international agencies are deploying this economic incentive strategy to encourage farmers to conserve landrace crops on-farm [133]. To secure effective cooperation, communities must be made aware of the costs and benefits of interventions, the capacity of proposed actions to achieve set objectives, and the economic benefits accruable to the farmer and community [133]. A rational farmer will usually shift from IC or exotic chicken production after comparing the expected annual profit of each enterprise. The proposed compensation framework will help to determine the critical diversity to conserve, the current diversity that maximizes total productivity, the risk of diversity loss due to changing economic, production and technological constraints and the optimal cost of conservation [133].

Critical to NIC conservation is proper characterization and economic valuation to enhance conservation value [6, 16, 108, 109]. Characterization should aim at comprehensive knowledge of the ecotype phenotypic and genotypic characteristics including data on population size and structure, geographical distribution, the production environment, and within and between breed genetic diversity [109, 122]. Conservation value is enhanced by appraisal of the relative importance of NICs from the farmer's perspective and the value placed on the characteristics, and maintenance of IC diversity [109, 122]; creation of appropriate breeding objectives to maximize the value and contribution of ICs to livelihood, and food security; and provide incentives including knowledge and infrastructure for local communities to keep and maintain IC genetic resources in their respective ecological context, thereby achieving conservation as well as maintaining rural livelihood and food security. Conservation priority should be given to ICs proven to be free of admixes of foreign genetic elements, and should be focused on the zones that contain maximum IC diversity to minimize the cost of conservation [108, 133].

#### **7. Conclusion**

Nigerian ICs are a genetically complex and critical animal genetic resource characterized by unique genetic attributes, diversity, and heritable variations. Conservation of the total diversity of NICs is very crucial because genetic

**157**

**Author details**

Abia State, Nigeria

Cosmas Chikezie Ogbu

provided the original work is properly cited.

*Utilization and Conservation of Landrace Chickens of Nigeria: Physical and Performance…*

complexity is requisite for evolutionary adaptation and adaptation is key to longterm survival. There is need to prioritize conservation of NICs (an invaluable national heritage) to stem the loss of IC genetic resources. Adoption of suggested

conservation strategies would lead to the realization of this goal.

Department of Veterinary Biochemistry and Animal Production, College of Veterinary Medicine, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike,

\*Address all correspondence to: ogbu.cosmas@mouau.edu.ng; ccogbu07@gmail.com

© 2021 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96580*

*Utilization and Conservation of Landrace Chickens of Nigeria: Physical and Performance… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96580*

complexity is requisite for evolutionary adaptation and adaptation is key to longterm survival. There is need to prioritize conservation of NICs (an invaluable national heritage) to stem the loss of IC genetic resources. Adoption of suggested conservation strategies would lead to the realization of this goal.
