MHC Class II Supertypes Affect Survival and Lifetime Reproductive Success in a Migratory Songbird.

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) plays a critical role in the immune response against pathogens. Its high polymorphism is thought to be mainly the consequence of host-pathogen co-evolution, but elucidating the mechanism(s) driving MHC evolution remains challenging for natural populations. We investigated the diversity of MHC class II genes in a wild population of pied flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca and tested its associations with two key components of individual fitness: lifetime reproductive success and survival.

Environmental conditions influence host-parasite interactions and host fitness in a migratory passerine.

The study of host-parasite co-evolution is a central topic in evolutionary ecology. However, research is still fragmented and the extent to which parasites influence host life history is debated. One reason for this incomplete picture is the frequent omission of environmental conditions in studies analyzing host-parasite dynamics, which may influence the exposure to or effects of parasitism.

Effects of trimer repeats on Psidium guajava L. gene expression and prospection of functional microsatellite markers.

Most research on trinucleotide repeats (TRs) focuses on human diseases, with few on the impact of TR expansions on plant gene expression. This work investigates TRs' effect on global gene expression in Psidium guajava L., a plant species with widespread distribution and significant relevance in the food, pharmacology, and economics sectors.

The effect of environmental variation on the relationship between survival and risk-taking behaviour in a migratory songbird.

Temporal changes in environmental conditions may play a major role in the year-to-year variation in fitness consequences of behaviours. Identifying environmental drivers of such variation is crucial to understand the evolutionary trajectories of behaviours in natural contexts. However, our understanding of how environmental variation influences behaviours in the wild remains limited.

The estimation of additive genetic variance of body size in a wild passerine is sensitive to the method used to estimate relatedness among the individuals.

Assessing additive genetic variance is a crucial step in predicting the evolutionary response of a target trait. However, the estimated genetic variance may be sensitive to the methodology used, e.g.