Migration direction in a songbird explained by two loci

Kristaps Sokolovskis (), Max Lundberg, Susanne Åkesson, Mikkel Willemoes, Tianhao Zhao, Violeta Caballero-Lopez and Staffan Bensch
Additional contact information
Kristaps Sokolovskis: Lund University, Ecology Building
Max Lundberg: Lund University, Ecology Building
Susanne Åkesson: Lund University, Ecology Building
Mikkel Willemoes: Lund University, Ecology Building
Tianhao Zhao: University of Groningen
Violeta Caballero-Lopez: Lund University, Ecology Building
Staffan Bensch: Lund University, Ecology Building

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract Migratory routes and remote wintering quarters in birds are often species and even population specific. It has been known for decades that songbirds mainly migrate solitarily, and that the migration direction is genetically controlled. Yet, the underlying genetic mechanisms remain unknown. To investigate the genetic basis of migration direction, we track genotyped willow warblers Phylloscopus trochilus from a migratory divide in Sweden, where South-West migrating, and South-East migrating subspecies form a hybrid swarm. We find evidence that migration direction follows a dominant inheritance pattern with epistatic interaction between two loci explaining 74% of variation. Consequently, most hybrids migrate similarly to one of the parental subspecies, and therefore do not suffer from the cost of following an inferior, intermediate route. This has significant implications for understanding the selection processes that maintain narrow migratory divides.

Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-35788-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-35788-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-35788-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().