Use of external biometrics to sex Carrion CrowCorvus corone, RookC. frugilegusand Western JackdawC. monedulain Northern England

Fletcher, Kathy; Foster, Robin B.

doi:10.1080/03078698.2010.9674414

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 13 publications

(16 reference statements)

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“…Additionally, males may invest relatively more in vigilance than in building due to their slightly larger body size (Fletcher & Foster, 2010), a trait which impacts contests in this species (Verhulst et al, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperative nest building in wild jackdaw pairs

Hahn

Hooper

McIvor

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Animals create diverse structures, both individually and cooperatively, using materials from their environment. One striking example are the nests birds build for reproduction, which protect the offspring from external stressors such as predators and temperature, promoting reproductive success. To construct a nest successfully, birds need to make various decisions, for example regarding the nest material and their time budgets. To date, research has focused mainly on species where one sex is primarily responsible for building the nest. In contrast, the cooperative strategies of monogamous species in which both sexes contribute to nest building are poorly understood. Here we investigated the role of both sexes in nest building and fitness correlates of behaviour in wild, monogamous jackdaw pairs (Corvus monedula). We show that both partners contributed to nest building and behaved similarly, with females and males present in the nest box for a comparable duration and transporting material to the nest equally often. However, while females spent more time constructing the nest, males tended to invest more time in vigilance, potentially as a means of coping with competition for nest cavities. These findings suggest a moderate degree of division of labour, which may facilitate cooperation. Moreover, some aspects of behaviour were related to proxies of reproductive success (lay date and egg volume). Females that contributed relatively more to bringing material laid earlier clutches and pairs that spent less time together in the nest box had larger eggs. Thus, selection pressures may act on how nest building pairs spend their time and cooperatively divide the labour. We conclude that cooperative nest building in birds could be associated with monogamy and obligate biparental care, and provides a vital but relatively untapped context through which to study the evolution of cooperation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperative nest building in wild jackdaw pairs

Hahn

Hooper

McIvor

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…Jackdaws are small corvids from the Palearctic (Madge and De Juana 2019), characterized by a black plumage, grey nape and distinctive pale-blue irises. The identification of sexes in the wild is difficult because sexual dimorphism in plumage is absent and, although males tend to be larger than females, there is considerable overlap between sexes (Green and Theobald 1989;Henderson 1991;Fletcher and Foster 2010). The traditional molecular method for bird sexing based on the PCR amplification of the CHD sexual gene (Griffiths et al 1998) works well in Jackdaws (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of sex-linked SNP markers in wild populations of monomorphic birds

Garcia‐Raventós

Muñoz‐Mérida

Lapiedra

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analyses are a powerful tool for population genetics, pedigree reconstruction and phenotypic trait mapping. SNPs could also be useful for sexing individuals in species with reduced sexual dimorphism, yet this possibility remains poorly explored. Here, we develop a novel protocol for molecular sexing of birds based on the detection of unique Z- and W-linked SNP markers. Our method is based on the identification of two unique loci, one in each sexual chromosome. Individuals are considered males when they are heterozygotic for the Z-linked SNP and females when they are homozygote for the Z-linked SNP and have the W-linked SNP. We validated the method in the Jackdaw (Corvus monedula), a species whose reduced sexual dimorphism makes it difficult to sex individuals in the wild. We assessed the reliability of the method with 36 individuals of known sex, and found that their sex was correctly assigned in 100% of cases. The sex-linked markers also proved to be widely applicable to discriminate males and females from a sample of 927 genotyped individuals of different maturity stages with an accuracy of 99.5%. Given that SNP markers are increasingly used in quantitative genetic analyses of wild populations, the approach we propose has a great potential to be integrated into broader genetic research programmes without the need of additional sexing techniques.

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“…Jackdaws are small corvids from the Palearctic (Madge & de Juana, 2020), characterized by black plumage, a grey nape and distinctive pale‐blue irises. Sex identification in this species is difficult because sexual dimorphism in plumage is absent and, although adult males tend to be larger than adult females, there is a certain overlap between sexes (Fletcher & Foster, 2010; Green & Theobald, 1989; Henderson, 1991). While the power of discriminating between sexes can be greatly reduced by using within‐pair comparisons of relative size, this approach is restricted to paired individuals (Fletcher & Hamer, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of sex‐linked SNP markers in wild populations of monomorphic birds

Garcia‐Raventós,

Muñoz‐Mérida,

Lapiedra

et al. 2023

Molecular Ecology Resources

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Single‐nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis is a powerful tool for population genetics, pedigree reconstruction and phenotypic trait mapping. However, the untapped potential of SNP markers to discriminate the sex of individuals in species with reduced sexual dimorphism or of individuals during immature stages remains a largely unexplored avenue. Here, we developed a novel protocol for molecular sexing of birds based on the detection of unique Z‐ and W‐linked SNP markers. Our method is based on the identification of two unique loci, one in each sexual chromosome. Individuals are considered males when they show no calls for the W‐linked SNP and are heterozygous or homozygous for the Z‐linked SNP, while females exhibit both Z‐ and W‐linked SNP calls. We validated the method in the Jackdaw (Corvus monedula). The reduced sexual dimorphism in this species makes it difficult to identify the sex of individuals in the wild. We assessed the reliability of the method using 36 individuals of known sex and found that their sex was correctly assigned in 100% of cases. The sex‐linked markers also proved to be widely applicable for discriminating males and females from a sample of 927 genotyped individuals at different maturity stages, with an accuracy of 99.5%. Since SNP markers are increasingly used in quantitative genetic analyses of wild populations, the approach we propose has great potential to be integrated into broader genetic research programmes without the need for additional sexing techniques.

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Use of external biometrics to sex Carrion CrowCorvus corone, RookC. frugilegusand Western JackdawC. monedulain Northern England

Cited by 10 publications

References 13 publications

Cooperative nest building in wild jackdaw pairs

Cooperative nest building in wild jackdaw pairs

Identification of sex-linked SNP markers in wild populations of monomorphic birds

Identification of sex‐linked SNP markers in wild populations of monomorphic birds

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