Chicken maternal lineage retained long historical relationship between Zanzibar and Oman

Abstract

The aim of this study is to appreciate the long historical relationship between Zanzibar and Oman, through the investigation of maternal lineage of chickens found in Zanzibar and Oman. Earlier traders and explorer from Arabia, Persian Gulf, West India and China probably visited Zanzibar as earlier as the 1st Century AD. Oman in Southern Coast of the Arabian Peninsula at the Persian Gulf played a tense relationship between seafaring and commercial people in Indian Ocean. Furthermore, the history of Zanzibar is directly linked to Oman, after Oman Empire expelled and ended the Portuguese dominance of the Indian Ocean trade routes. In 1650 Oman becomes one of the main maritime and mercantile powers in the Persian Gulf and in the Indian Ocean. The sultans of Oman ruled over a substantial part of the Swahili Coast along the Indian Ocean from 1689-1856, controlling elaborate trade routes and cash crop plantations in East Africa. In the mid-1800s, they moved their seat of power from Muscat, Oman, to Stone Town, Zanzibar, and ruled as a constitutional monarchy. This historical relationship can be traced from maternal lineage of chickens that currently exist in Zanzibar and Oman. The mitochondrial genome has been the most widely used system for the investigation of the evolutionary history of species. The high rate of sequence divergence and its uniparental, maternal inheritance can retain evolution relationship as genetic fossils. The Phylogenetic network and Medial-Joining network analysis revealed strong association of evolution relationship between chicken ecotypes from Zanzibar and Oman. The prominent ancestral haplogroups indicated strong association of these chicken populations that were descended from the common ancestry. The Maritime trade interactions and consequences of Oman sultanate regimes in Zanzibar could significantly contributed to the ancestral relationship that existing today between Zanzibar and Oman Chickens.