Research report 2013 - Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence (Seewiesen site)

Genes and environment: how do they influence behaviour and physiology of songbirds?

Authors
Leitner, Stefan
Departments
Abteilung Verhaltensneurobiologie
Summary
Environmental factors can have a large impact on behaviour and the underlying physiology. For example, island canaries advance the onset of breeding in response to growing plants. In zebra finches both song and the song control regions in the brain show low heritability but are highly sensitive to changes of the environment. In contrast, brain size largely depends on the interaction between genes and the environment. In this way additive genetic variation is maintained. These results emphasize the major importance of environmental factors for vocal learning and neural development in songbirds.

For the full text, see the German version.

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