ARRA: Behavioral Genomics of the White-throated Sparrow

Behavioral traits have complex genetic bases and are the result of interactions between multiple genes and/or environments. The white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia a/bicoWs) is a new animal model for studying human behavior. Collaborators at Indian State University have amassed 20 years of detailed behavioral, physiological, environmental, and evolutionary data on this species making it possible to identify the genetic, epigenetic, and environmental bases of behavior. Various genomic approaches will be used to establish the white-throated sparrow as a valid model for behavioral genomics. However, our contribution to this project will be to develop a comparative genetic map composed of BAC markers along white-throated sparrow chromosomes 1-9, ZW and to map genes within and around two chromosome inversions that are known to be associated with color patterns and behavioral phenotypes.