anticipating spring wild populations of great tits (parus major) differ in expression of key genes for photoperiodic time measurement期待春天野生种群的大山雀(大山雀)不同光周期的关键基因的表达时间测量.pdfVIP

Anticipating Spring: Wild Populations of Great Tits (Parus major) Differ in Expression of Key Genes for Photoperiodic Time Measurement 1,2 1 3 1 1,4 Nicole Perfito *, Sun Young Jeong , Bengt Silverin , Rebecca M. Calisi , George E. Bentley , Michaela Hau2 1 Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America, 2 Department of Migration and Immuno-ecology, Max Planck ¨ ¨ Institute for Ornithology, Radolfzell, Germany, 3 Department of Zoology, Gothenburg University, Goteborg, Sweden, 4 Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America Abstract Measuring day length is critical for timing annual changes in physiology and behavior in many species. Recently, rapid changes in several photoperiodically-controlled genes following exposure to a single long day have been described. Components of this ‘first day release’ model have so far only been tested in highly domesticated species: quail, sheep, goats and rodents. Because artificial selection accompanying domestication acts on genes related to photoperiodicity, we must also study this phenomenon in wild organisms for it to be accepted as universal. In a songbird, the great tit (Parus major), we tested whether a) these genes are involved in photoperiodic time measurement (PTM) in a wild species, and b) whether predictable species and population differences in expression patterns exist. Using quantitative RT-PCR, we compared gene expression after a single long day in male great tits from Sweden (57u429N) with that from a German (47u4