Our paper in Nature Communications about Pekin duck domestication can be found here.
After read Charles Darwin’s book “The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication” , I was fascinated by domestic plant and animal. Fortunately, in omics era, we are able to uncover the mysteries of domestication in genomic level. Around five years ago, I carried out several studies for domestication of plant and fruits, and I mainly focused on elucidation of genetic basis of soybean and peach domesticate traits. We found many interesting stories in these studies.
At 2014, I obtained young talent scientist position in the institute of animal science, CAAS, and then we mainly focus on studies of duck and genome and genetic breeding. There is no doubt that I continue work on the field of domestication of duck. The Pekin duck is a world-famous domestic duck breed which is known for its extraordinary body size and fast growth rate. Domestic duck, such as Pekin ducks can reach an average weight of 3.5 kilograms after 42 days. Domesticated ducks differ from their wild mallard progenitor in a wide array of morphological and physiological traits. I think it’s can help to initiate many attractive stories.