Pilot Study DBT-BBSRC

There is rich genetic diversity in India's native poultry breeds, and the hybrid exotic lines often used in Indian commercial production are distinct from the majority of poultry reared in the UK. The prevalence and dynamics of gastrointestinal infection at farm-level has a direct bearing on economic risk to individual farmers and contributes to overall global concerns of food security and food safety.Changes to diet, use of vaccines or antimicrobials, and flock-level interventions such as 'thinning', can have profound effects on intestinal health and the evolution and spread of disease-causing microbes and may be amplified by genetic variation in host and microbe populations. Whilst major advances in genomics and genotyping of commercial poultry lines is facilitating the identification of loci linked to susceptibility or resistance, the impact of host and pathogen diversity on disease and production outcomes remains largely unexplored.