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Avian Population Studies in the Genomic Era

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Avian Genomics in Ecology and Evolution

Abstract

Long-term studies on birds have played a pivotal role in addressing important questions in evolutionary biology, and avian biologists were quick at adopting new genetic tools. The integration of genetic work on birds has revolutionised the way we think about avian mating systems, for example. During the last decade, we have seen a tremendous decline in the cost of sequencing, making it possible to genotype or sequence hundreds or even thousands of individuals. These tools are offering an exciting new array of questions to be asked from long-term longitudinal studies on birds. We review here some of the genetic resources currently available to researchers studying avian population samples, some statistical approaches to analyse population-level genomic data and future questions that long-term studies on birds can provide insights into. It is clear that genomic approaches on long-term studies on birds have played, and will continue to play, an important role for addressing fundamental evolutionary questions.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Robert Kraus for the invitation to contribute to this book and for his encouragement during the process. We would also like to thank Robert Kraus and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions that improved the manuscript. A.H. acknowledges support from the Norwegian Research Council grants 239974 and 223257; A.Q. acknowledges the Swedish Research Council and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; and SEM acknowledges support from the Swedish Research Council (2017-00499).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Genetics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Arild Husby, S. Eryn McFarlane & Anna Qvarnström

  2. Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Programme, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Arild Husby

  3. Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Arild Husby

  4. Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    S. Eryn McFarlane

Authors
  1. Arild Husby
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  2. S. Eryn McFarlane
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  3. Anna Qvarnström
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Correspondence to Arild Husby .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Migration and Immuno-Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Radolfzell, Germany and Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

    Robert H. S. Kraus

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Husby, A., McFarlane, S.E., Qvarnström, A. (2019). Avian Population Studies in the Genomic Era. In: Kraus, R. (eds) Avian Genomics in Ecology and Evolution. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16477-5_9

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