Ardea
Official journal of the Netherlands Ornithologists' Union

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Baker A.J. (2002) The deep roots of bird migration: Inferences from the historical record preserved in DNA. ARDEA 90 (3): 503-513
Coalescent analysis is a useful tool for relating the historical relationships among gene lineages to the demographic parameters of populations. In this paper I show how simulations of the coalescent process can be used in three species of migratory birds (Dunlin Calidris alpina, Yellow Warbler Dendroica petrechia, Common Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs) to detect historical migration events in these species, and thus to get at the deep roots of population structure. These analyses indicate that current faithful behavioural migration to natal breeding sites is maintaining regional population divergences that originated in the last half of the Pleistocene


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