Methylation patterns at fledging predict delayed dispersal in a cooperatively breeding bird.

ABSTRACT: Individuals may delay dispersing from their natal habitat, even after maturation to adulthood. Such delays can have broad consequences from determining population structure to allowing an individual to gain indirect fitness by helping parents rear future offspring. Dispersal in species that use delayed dispersal is largely thought to be opportunistic; however, how individuals, particularly inexperienced juveniles, assess their environments to determine the appropriate time to disperse is unknown. One relatively unexplored possibility is that dispersal decisions are the result of epigenetic mechanisms interacting between a genome and environment during development to generate variable dispersive phenotypes. Here, we tested this using epiRADseq to compare genome-wide levels of DNA methylatio

SUBMITTER: Liebl AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8177507 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature