In the last 5 years we developed, together with national and international partners, a genomic toolbox for Great Tits, which complements our ongoing molecular work of for example molecular sexing of individuals and determining extra-pair paternities.

The department of Animal Ecology started collecting tissue samples from birds (mainly Great Tits, Blue Tits, Pied Flycatchers and Oystercatchers) and Winter Moth since 1993. These samples are used for different applications:

  • sex- determination (PCR)
  • extra-pair paternity analysis (microsatellites)
  • gene expression (qPCR and RNAseq)
  • genotyping (sanger sequencing and WGS)
  • studies on epigenetics (RRBS and WGBS)
  • linking personality and laying date to genes (SNP-detection on an Axiom Array)

Because the molecular facilities are shared with the other departments within the NIOO the equipment and expertise are of high quality. When the required equipment is not available at the NIOO (for example for the detection of 650.000 SNP’s ) there is cooperation with other labs.

All samples collected (blood samples, feathers, eggs, etc.) are linked to a record (capture) in the AnE-database which makes it is easy to check if a sample from an individual bird is available and to find the storage place. At the moment the AnE-database contains over 100.000 samples. Molecular data (for example the sex of a bird or a genotype) is also stored in the same database.