Genetics of Migration – a case study of willow warblers

AbstractIt is firmly established that the migratory program of naïve song birds is hard-wired. But how a DNA sequence can make an individual bird to keep flying slightly east of south rather than any other southerly direction, for more than a month, crossing deserts and oceans to finally reach a wintering area on another continent, remains a major unsolved problem. The three subspecies of the willow warbler with its sharp migratory divide in Scandinavia, a wider migratory divide south of the Baltic Sea and the gradual change of its migration pattern along its continues distribution eastwards throughout Siberia is excellent model to address these questions. I will present my long term research on willow warblers that method-wise span from the time when mtDNA sequencing and microsatellites were the standard techniques, to our most recent results from genome resequencing.