Identifying genes influenced by natural selection can provide information about lineage-specific adaptations, and transcriptomes generated by next-generation sequencing are a useful resource for identifying such genes. Here, we utilize a spleen transcriptome for the house finch (Haemorhous mexicanus), an emerging model for sexual selection and disease ecology, together with previously sequenced...

1) Methods (a) Samples We analyzed 19 individuals belonging to 11 relevant honeycreeper taxa and one outgroup. Common and scientific names of taxa sampled and respective sample sizes (n) are as follows: Hawaii creeper, Oreomystis mana (3); Kauai creeper, O. bairdi (2); Maui alauahio, Paroreomyza montana (2); akepa, Loxops coccineus (3); akekee, L. caeruleirostris (2); Hawaii amakihi, Hemignathu...

Evolution can be predicted in the short term from a knowledge of selection and inheritance. However, in the long term evolution is unpredictable because environments, which determine the directions and magnitudes of selection coefficients, fluctuate unpredictably. These two features of evolution, the predictable and unpredictable, are demonstrated in a study of two populations of Darwin's finch...

Auditory neurons can be characterized by a spectro-temporal receptive field, the kernel of a linear filter model describing the neuronal response to a stimulus. With a view to better understanding the tuning properties of these cells, the receptive fields of neurons in the zebra finch auditory fore-brain are compared to a set of artificial kernels generated under the assumption of sparseness; t...

Birds use various vocalizations to communicate with one another, and some are acquired through learning. So far, three families of birds (songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds) have been identified as having vocal learning ability. Previously, we found that cadherins, a large family of cell-adhesion molecules, show vocal control-area-related expression in a songbird, the Bengalese finch. To inve...

Identifying genes influenced by natural selection can provide information about lineage-specific adaptations, and transcriptomes generated by next-generation sequencing are a useful resource for identifying such genes. Here, we utilize a spleen transcriptome for the house finch (Haemorhous mexicanus), an emerging model for sexual selection and disease ecology, together with previously sequenced...