Study birds

Affairs happen- Why genetics?

Genetic tests and genetic fingerprinting help to elucidate a lot of characteristics. For example, what makes you unique, why you look like other members of your family and how is the hereditary information built up in your DNA.

The origin, the genetics, diversity, distribution of the genes, detection of diseases and your health status, these are all questions that can be analysed with the help of genetic fingerprinting. We use PCR methods and primer design to identify variants in DNA samples of nightingales.

DNA analyses are used for population studies, for health and disease research as well as for the prevention and treatment of diseases. In this study, DNA analyses and genetic fingerprinting were used to establish DNA analyses of nightingale populations. For the genetic fingerprints, we need only minute amounts of saliva, blood, or feathers of nightingales to demonstrate relationships and paternity in nightingales. Read our latest publication in Current Zoology about affairs, singing and behaviour of nightingales…

Landgraf, C, Wilhelm, K, Wirth, J, Weiss, M, & Kipper, S (2017). Affairs happen—to whom? A study on extrapair paternity in common nightingales. Curr Zool 2017 zox024. doi: 10.1093/cz/zox024.