Eight microsatellite loci characterised in the European blackbird, Turdus merula

Segelbacher, Gernot; Sacher, Thomas; Schwarzenberger, Anke; Woitsch, Sonja; Bairlein, Franz; Coppack, Timothy

doi:10.1007/s10336-007-0227-0

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…e European Blackbird Turdus merula is a common breeding bird all over Europe, North Africa, Asia, and Australia [9][10][11][12][13][14]. Generally, the European Blackbird is categorized as one of the most widespread passerines in the Western Palearctic zone [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Breeding Performances of the European Blackbird (Turdus merula) in Morocco: Habitat Selection, Breeding Phenology, and Breeding Success

Hassani¹,

Mansouri²,

Squalli³

et al. 2021

International Journal of Zoology

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The European Blackbird (Turdus merula) is a widespread species. In Morocco, available knowledge on this species is limited to a few descriptive pieces of information with no detailed data provided. With climate change and the intensification of agricultural activities, the study of the breeding performances of this species is indispensable for management purposes. This study investigates breeding biology, nesting habitats, breeding chronology, and reproductive success of the European Blackbird in both apple orchards and surrounding woody vegetation at Ait Ayach (Morocco) between March and August 2016. We monitored weekly nest status, nesting sites, breeding dates, and failure factors. Results showed that the European Blackbird nests mainly in apple orchards, on Golden Delicious and Starkrimson Delicious trees. Nest height above the ground was 214.15 ± 0.09 cm. Blackbird nests were cup-shaped with medium size dimensions and built from twigs, including dry leaves, stems, and roots walled by the mud. Breeding activities started firstly by nest construction during the last week of April, secondly by egg laying during the first week of May, and thirdly by hatching during the second week of May. Among the 74 surveyed nests, 100% were active during the nesting phase and 88.38% of eggs have succeeded during the incubation phase. In total, 69.03% of chicks have been emancipated. In short, 15.9% of clutches were attacked by predators, 14.35% of clutches were failed due to nest desertion, and 8.75% of chicks were dead. Our study provides the first and only detailed data on reproductive parameters of the European Blackbird in Moroccan ecosystems. Data collected from this study provide valuable information for long-term monitoring of the Moroccan Blackbird population. Additionally, our data offer a possibility of large-scale comparative studies of the reproductive ecology of the Blackbird species.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Breeding Performances of the European Blackbird (Turdus merula) in Morocco: Habitat Selection, Breeding Phenology, and Breeding Success

Hassani¹,

Mansouri²,

Squalli³

et al. 2021

International Journal of Zoology

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“…For example, Partecke, Gwinner & Bensch (2006) used genetic markers, but found that urban and rural populations were very similar. The Blackbird was genetically analyzed using eight microsatellites as molecular marker ( Segelbacher et al, 2008 ) as well as two mitochondrial and one nuclear genes ( Rodrigues et al, 2016 ). A mitochondrial genome of the Blackbird was published by Peng, Yang & Lu (2015) with a total length of 16,730 bp and they found 13 protein coding genes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of a de novo assembled transcriptome of the Common Blackbird (Turdus merula)

Koglin

Trense

Sauer‐Gürth

et al. 2017

PeerJ

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BackgroundIn recent years, next generation high throughput sequencing technologies have proven to be useful tools for investigations concerning the genomics or transcriptomics also of non-model species. Consequently, ornithologists have adopted these technologies and the respective bioinformatics tools to survey the genomes and transcriptomes of a few avian non-model species. The Common Blackbird is one of the most common bird species living in European cities, which has successfully colonized urban areas and for which no reference genome or transcriptome is publicly available. However, to target questions like genome wide gene expression analysis, a reference genome or transcriptome is needed.MethodsTherefore, in this study two Common Blackbirds were sacrificed, their mRNA was isolated and analyzed by RNA-Seq to de novo assemble a transcriptome and characterize it. Illumina reads (125 bp paired-end) and a Velvet/Oases pipeline led to 162,158 transcripts. For the annotation (using Blast+), an unfiltered protein database was used. SNPs were identified using SAMtools and BCFtools. Furthermore, mRNA from three single tissues (brain, heart and liver) of the same two Common Blackbirds were sequenced by Illumina (75 bp single-end reads). The draft transcriptome and the three single tissues were compared by their BLAST hits with the package VennDiagram in R.ResultsFollowing the annotation against protein databases, we found evidence for 15,580 genes in the transcriptome (all well characterized hits after annotation). On 18% of the assembled transcripts, 144,742 SNPs were identified which are, consequently, 0.09% of all nucleotides in the assembled transcriptome. In the transcriptome and in the single tissues (brain, heart and liver), 10,182 shared genes were found.DiscussionUsing a next-generation technology and bioinformatics tools, we made a first step towards the genomic investigation of the Common Blackbird. The de novo assembled transcriptome is usable for downstream analyses such as differential gene expression analysis and SNP identification. This study shows the importance of the approach to sequence single tissues to understand functions of tissues, proteins and the phenotype.

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Life-history theory predicts host behavioural responses to experimental brood parasitism

Hauber

Samaš

Anderson

et al. 2013

Ethology Ecology & Evolution

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Eight microsatellite loci characterised in the European blackbird, Turdus merula

Cited by 4 publications

References 24 publications

Breeding Performances of the European Blackbird (Turdus merula) in Morocco: Habitat Selection, Breeding Phenology, and Breeding Success

Breeding Performances of the European Blackbird (Turdus merula) in Morocco: Habitat Selection, Breeding Phenology, and Breeding Success

Characterization of a de novo assembled transcriptome of the Common Blackbird (Turdus merula)

Life-history theory predicts host behavioural responses to experimental brood parasitism

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