Good evening all and welcome to the new, trivia free, Saturday Night Hootenanny. We are going to kick off with some Blazing Saddles and see where the recommendations lead us.
Great Tits Living in Cities Are Genetically Different From Great Tits in the Countryside University of Glasgow via Phys.org | May 20, 2021
Great tits living in cities are genetically different from great tits in the countryside. Researchers made the discovery after a unique study where they examined populations of great tits in nine large European cities, including Glasgow.
The researchers compared the city bird genes with the genes of their relatives in the countryside. The findings, which are published today in Nature Communications, showed that it didn’t matter if the great tits lived in Barcelona, Malmö or Glasgow: in order to handle an environment created by humans, the city birds all evolved in a similar way.
The European research, which was led by Lund University in collaboration with researchers at the University of Glasgow, included a study of birds from Kelvingrove Park together with birds from around the forest in the University of Glasgow’s SCENE (Scottish Center for Ecology and the Natural Environment) facility, located near Loch Lomond.
The researchers found that different genes linked to important biological functions regulated by serotonin, including aggression and circadian rhythms, were found to have been selected and passed on from generation to generation in the city birds. In rural populations, these behaviors are also important, however, the genes that control them do not confer the same advantage as they do in an urban environment.
On a serious note, it reads like the rural birds do have the same genes, yet the behavior they express is not as advantageous. How does this make them genetically different?
(The article goes on to say “The researchers analyzed more than half a million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) spread over the entire genome, and found that a handful of genes that had clearly changed in response to the urban environment.” But wouldn’t that be the lead paragraph, not just a virtual footnote?)
On an even more serious note, isn’t it about time to change the name of this bird? Surely people as afraid of researching and discussing it as they are of Uranus.
On an even less serious note:
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