Genetic Heritage in the Face of Avian Influenza
Genetic selection is a regular process of improving a selection nucleus, also known as a pure line. Elite breeders then pass on their potential to the entire sector through successive crossbreeding. This transmission is traditionally represented by a pyramid with several levels: pure line, grandparents, parents, and commercial stocks, each derived from the previous level. This allows for the benefits of genetic improvements made within the different lines and the effect of heterosis or hybrid vigor.
It is therefore easy to understand the threat posed by a virus such as avian influenza, particularly for a species such as pigeons, which do not live in closed buildings. If this virus were to decimate breeding flocks, the entire industry would be threatened, like a family tree that is no longer being fed.
In poultry, unlike other species, genetic heritage is preserved solely through breeding stock; there are currently no techniques for freezing embryos or cryopreserving sperm, for example.
To preserve genetic heritage when health pressures are too high, one strategy may be to hatch and raise purebred ringed animals, i.e., individuals whose genealogy is known, in less risky areas. This is possible with ducks, but difficult with pigeons. Unlike ducklings, pigeons, which are a species that nest in nests, need their parents’ care during their first month of life, until they are weaned.
Another way to reduce the risk is to increase the number of selection programs, but with an unpredictable virus that evolves in pockets or appears sporadically, it is difficult to predict which areas will remain unaffected.
Unfortunately, this threat has become a cruel uncertainty that recurs with each migratory flow, and the 2025 season has not spared us.
As a breeder, Europigeon has a duty to anticipate this risk. Its technological expertise in genotyping for parentage attribution offers another opportunity. The IMAGE project led by Wageningen University has developed a panel of multi-species molecular markers including pigeons. The Grimaud Frères teams were then able to use this tool to provide a solution.
The principle is simple, but the tool is very effective. Each breeding animal passes on half of its genetic potential to its offspring. Using statistical methods, it is then possible to study common markers and determine the relationship between individuals with over 98% reliability.
This means that individuals directly descended from selected herds can be pooled and raised in different areas within identified parent herds. In the event of high flu pressure, their DNA could then be collected and compared to that of previously genotyped purebred herds from which they originate. It would then be possible to establish parentage retrospectively and reconstruct a family tree.
There is therefore no ideal plan or single answer to the threat of influenza, but Europigeon, aware of the challenges facing the sector, is assuming its responsibility as a breeder today and tomorrow.
Schematic representation of parentage assignment: we are looking for the biological father among these two potential sires. At the first marker, the young animal is A1, as are the two breeding males, which means we cannot distinguish between them. At the second marker, the young animal is B7, sharing the same allele as breeding male 1, but not with the second potential father, which definitively excludes the latter. The same principle applies on the maternal side. It should be noted that this methodology, based on more than 10,000 markers distributed across the DNA, has a reliability rate of over 98%.