Title |
Linking melanism to brain development: expression of a melanism-related gene in barn owl feather follicles covaries with sleep ontogeny
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Published in |
Frontiers in Zoology, July 2013
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DOI | 10.1186/1742-9994-10-42 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Madeleine F Scriba, Anne-Lyse Ducrest, Isabelle Henry, Alexei L Vyssotski, Niels C Rattenborg, Alexandre Roulin |
Abstract |
Intra-specific variation in melanocyte pigmentation, common in the animal kingdom, has caught the eye of naturalists and biologists for centuries. In vertebrates, dark, eumelanin pigmentation is often genetically determined and associated with various behavioral and physiological traits, suggesting that the genes involved in melanism have far reaching pleiotropic effects. The mechanisms linking these traits remain poorly understood, and the potential involvement of developmental processes occurring in the brain early in life has not been investigated. We examined the ontogeny of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, a state involved in brain development, in a wild population of barn owls (Tyto alba) exhibiting inter-individual variation in melanism and covarying traits. In addition to sleep, we measured melanistic feather spots and the expression of a gene in the feather follicles implicated in melanism (PCSK2). |
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Unknown | 1 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
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Members of the public | 1 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
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Germany | 2 | 3% |
Hungary | 1 | 2% |
Romania | 1 | 2% |
Unknown | 59 | 94% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
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Student > Ph. D. Student | 16 | 25% |
Researcher | 9 | 14% |
Student > Bachelor | 8 | 13% |
Student > Master | 7 | 11% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 6 | 10% |
Other | 7 | 11% |
Unknown | 10 | 16% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
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Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 32 | 51% |
Psychology | 7 | 11% |
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 5 | 8% |
Neuroscience | 4 | 6% |
Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine | 1 | 2% |
Other | 3 | 5% |
Unknown | 11 | 17% |