1. Functional traits are the essential phenotypes that underlie an organism's life history and ecology. Although biologists have long recognized that intraspecific variation is consequential to an animals' ecology, studies of functional variation are often restricted to species-level comparisons, ignoring critical variation within species. In birds, interspecific comparisons have been foundational in connecting flight muscle phenotypes to species-level ecology, but intraspecific variation has remained largely unexplored.2. We asked how age-and sex-dependent demands on flight muscle function are reconciled in birds. The flight muscle is an essential multifunctional organ, mediating a large range of functions associated with powered flight and thermoregulation. These functions must be balanced over an individual's lifetime.3. We leveraged within-and between-species comparisons in a clade of small passerines (Tarsiger bush-robins) from the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.We integrated measurements of flight muscle physiology, morphology, behaviour, phenology and environmental data, analysing trait data within a context of three widespread, adaptive life-history strategies-sexual dichromatism, age and sexstructured migration, and delayed plumage maturation. This approach provides a framework of the selective forces that shape functional variation within and between species. 4. We found more variation in flight muscle traits within species than has been previously described between species of birds under 20 g. This variation was associated with the discovery of mixed muscle fibre types (i.e. both fast glycolytic and fast oxidative fibres), which differ markedly in their physiological and functional attributes. This result is surprising given that the flight muscles of small birds are
The complete sequence of Pseudopodoces humilis mitochondrial genome was determined by using L-PCR and conserved primer walking approaches. The results showed that the entire mitochondrial genome of P. humilis was 16,758 bp in length with 52.5% A + T content; the genome harbored the same gene order with that of other birds, including 2 rRNA genes, 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes and 1 non-coding control region. All tRNAs formed typical cloverleaf secondary structures (excluding tRNA). The control region (D-loop) of P. humilis was located between tRNA and tRNA with 1168 bp length, no repetitive sequence.
The data in this paper are related to the research article entitled “Taxonomic status and phylogenetic relationship of tits based on mitogenomes and nuclear segments” (X.J. Li et al., 2016) [1]. The mitochondrial genomes and nuclear segments of tits were sequenced to analyze mitochondrial characteristics and phylogeny. In the data, the analyzed results are presented. The data holds the resulting files of mitochondrial characteristics, heterogeneity, best schemes, and trees.
The complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Coal Tit (Parus ater) consisted 16,783 bp, the genome harbored the same gene order with that of other birds, contained 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs, and 1 non-coding control region. The all tRNAs can formed typical cloverleaf secondary structures (excluding tRNA(Ser-AGY)). A total of 38 base mismatches appeared, mainly 28 for G-U mismatch, 5 for A-C mismatch, 2 for U-U mismatch. The third loci of codon existed obvious base bias. The control region was between tRNA(Glu) and tRNA(Phe), consisted 1195 bp, no repetitive sequence.
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