Abstract
Because of the extreme ecological and environmental changes along an urban–rural gradient, it has been proposed that urbanised and non-urbanised populations of the same species may be distinctly isolated. There is evidence that urban populations have become significantly different from the original forest populations in several aspects. However, little is known about the extent to which urban and non-urban populations are genetically isolated from each other. We tested the hypothesis of genetic differentiation by comparing the genomic DNA of an urban and a nearby forest-living European blackbird (Turdus merula) population. The present results suggest that, based on amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis, the urban population studied is very similar to a forest population at neutral genetic markers. Thus, despite indications of obvious functional genetic adaptation, the hypothesis of an overall genetic differentiation between our urban and forest populations could not be supported.
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Acknowledgements
We thank R. Barth, D. Geue and D. Schmidl for invaluable help during field work and W. Jensen for technical support. A special thank to M. Webster and two anonymous reviewers for useful comments on a previous draft. All experimental procedures were carried out in accordance with the guidelines of the relevant German agencies. J.P. is currently supported by the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. Ebo Gwinner was involved in all stages of this study from planning the experiment to writing the first manuscript draft. Unfortunately, he died on 7 September 2004 before our manuscript was finalised.
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Communicated by F. Bairlein
Eberhard Gwinner died on 7 September 2004
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Partecke, J., Gwinner, E. & Bensch, S. Is urbanisation of European blackbirds (Turdus merula) associated with genetic differentiation?. J Ornithol 147, 549–552 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-006-0078-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-006-0078-0