One part of my research focuses on constructing a circuit to model how a bird selects for successful song renditions when it learns to sing with practice.
For birds selected on the basis of early (e) trait data, also late (l) production 42-466 weeks of age) traits were recorded: body weight (lBW, g); egg production (lPD, percent hen average); puncture score (lPS, Newton); egg weight (lEW, g); albumen height (lAH, mm); egg color (lCO, Lab); and yolk weight (lYW, g).
"Over 30 years, you can see these birds being selected for their ability to avoid cars".
Apparently healthy birds were selected for testing by ornithologists, hunters or veterinarians following the national plan for avian influenza monitoring which allocates different minimum sample sizes to the German federal states and districts according to their area (active monitoring).
The female and male birds were selected for CHD-W and CHD-Z abundant sources because the CHD-Z and CHD-W PCR products were hard to resolve in regular agarose gel.
This model consists of two lines: a randomly bred control line of turkeys (RBC2), maintained without selection pressure and representing a commercial turkey from 1967 [ 10], and a unique line genetically derived from the RBC2 birds and selected for over 40 generations solely for 16-wk body weight (F) [ 11].
On an individual level, all birds selected the baited cup on the majority of the trials in the baited and in the both condition, with six of seven birds being significant in the both condition (Binomial test: for these six birds, all P < 0.023, the seventh bird, P = 0.152); all birds significantly preferred the baited cup in the baited condition (Binomial test: all P < 0.002).
Bird groups selected for trees at least 1.6 times as large in diameter in treated stands as compared to control stands.
