Microsatellites underestimate genetic divergence in the Green-backed Tit (Parus monticolus)

Cryptic sexual dichromatism occurs across multiple types of plumage in the Green-backed Tit Parus monticolus

CHRISTOPHER HOFMANN, 1 * WEN-SUI LO, 2 CHENG-TE YAO 3 & SHOU-HSIEN LI 2 1 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA 2 Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, 88 Ting-Chow Road, Sec 4, Taipei, Taiwan, 116, China 3 Endemic Species Research Institute, 1 Ming-Shen East Road, JiJi Township, Nantou ...

Realized heritability of personalities in the great tit (Parus major).

Behaviour under conditions of mild stress shows consistent patterns in all vertebrates: exploratory behaviour, boldness, aggressiveness covary in the same way. The existence of highly consistent individual variation in these behavioural strategies, also referred to as personalities or coping styles, allows us to measure the behaviour under standardized conditions on birds bred in captivity, lin...

A complete multilocus species phylogeny of the tits and chickadees (Aves: Paridae).

The avian family Paridae (tits and chickadees) contains c. 55 species distributed in the Palearctic, Nearctic, Afrotropics and Indomalaya. The group includes some of the most well-known and extensively studied avian species, and the evolutionary history, in particular the post-glacial colonization of the northern latitudes, has been comparably well-studied for several species. Yet a comprehensi...

Evolution of enlarged body size of coal tits Parus ater in geographic isolation from two larger competitors, the crested tit Parus cristatus and the willow tit Parus montanus, on six Scandinavian islands

Here, we report that on six widely separated Scandinavian islands, the coal tit Parus ater has evolved morphologically in the direction of two absent competitors, the crested tit P. cristatus and the willow tit P. montanus, to the effect that it is up to 10% larger in linear dimensions than conspecifics on the adjacent Swedish mainland, where all three species coexist. The large size is genetic...

Correlates of Variation in Flight Feather Quality in the Great Tit Parus major