Kees van Oers

City and forest great tits respond differently to artificial light at night: insights from a common garden study

This study shows city and forest great tits differ genetically in their behavioral response to artificial light at night, but not in their circadian clock properties.

An introgressed haplotype decouples phenotype from genome-wide ancestry

The paper identifies a localized introgressed haplotype in a great tit that retains distinct ancestry despite genome-wide homogenization, linking it to plumage pigmentation.

Fishing pressure induces changes in DNA methylation in genetically homogeneous marine metapopulations

The paper shows fishing pressure leads to DNA methylation changes in marine fish, independent of age effects, suggesting epigenetic adaptation under strong selection.

Enemies, more than sex, shape butterfly post-mating odor evolution

This study shows that post-mating odors in butterflies serve ecological roles like deterring predators and parasitoids, not just sexual selection.

Independent avian epigenetic clocks for aging and development

The paper develops epigenetic clocks for aging and development in great tits using DNA methylation data, showing accurate age prediction and biological aging differences in nestlings.

Size in the city: morphological differences between city and forest great tits have a genetic basis

This study shows that smaller size in urban great tits is genetic, not due to food scarcity, as city and forest birds responded similarly to reduced food availability.

Continent-wide drivers of spatial synchrony in age structure across wild great tit populations

The paper quantifies spatial synchrony in great tit age structure across 32 populations and identifies drivers like clutch size, temperature, and beech crops, showing synchrony maintained up to 650km.

DNA methylation associates with sex-specific effects of experimentally increased yolk testosterone in wild nestlings

The paper examines how increased yolk testosterone affects DNA methylation and phenotypes in wild great tit nestlings, finding sex-specific methylation changes at 763 CpG sites linked to growth, oxidative stress, and reproduction.

The effect of experimental lead pollution on DNA methylation in a wild bird population

The paper examines how lead pollution affects DNA methylation in wild great tits, finding changes in methylation of development-related genes but inconsistent statistical results.

epiGBS2: an improved protocol and automated snakemake workflow for highly multiplexed reduced representation bisulfite sequencing

epiGBS2 improves upon epiGBS by offering a more flexible, cost-effective, and user-friendly protocol and bioinformatics pipeline for methylation and genetic analysis.

Exploring the unmapped DNA and RNA reads in a songbird genome

The paper explores unmapped DNA and RNA reads from a songbird genome, generating de novo assemblies to identify sequences absent in the reference genome and potential pathogens.