Today's turkeys are wildly different from their ancestors

With the spirit of the holiday still high, HealthDay News reports that the turkey you ate was greatly different from its ancestors in terms of genetic variation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture formed a team that compared the genetic diversity of domestic turkeys bred for Thanksgiving and their wild-roaming Mexican ancestors. This was completed by comparing the genomes of several types of domestic turkeys and the genomes of three Mexican wild turkeys. The genomes of the wild turkeys were collected in 1899 and were specimens of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.



They found that the genetic variation in the domestic turkeys is much lower than that of the ancestral turkeys. Not only that, but the domestic turkeys have less genetic variation than other livestock breeds, including domestic pigs and chickens. The domestic turkey's reduced variation affects the body size and breast muscle development, according to the article. The ancestral turkeys were transported and domesticated by the Europeans more than 100 years ago. Throughout all that time, many different varieties of the turkey were created. This selection in domestication reduced the level of variation. Unfortunately, this decrease in genetic variation may affect the holidays in the future if some unforseen problem arises.

While this is not nearly the only animal to have gone through such domestication, it clearly shows that we as humans have a great power. It is interesting to see how much control we have over breeding animals and plants just to suit our own needs and wants as humans. Who knows what the world will be like in another 100 years as we continue to control the environment around us.