Postdoc Scott Taylor just gave a talk at AOU/COS on A comparative transcriptomic approach for understanding low hybrid fitness in chickadees. Summary: Comparing the transcriptomes of Black-capped, Carolina, and Mountain chickadees has provided support for our hypothesis that a breakdown in aerobic capacity in hybrid chickadees may be the underlying mechanism facilitating maintenance of reproductive isolation. We find that multiple pathways involved in aerobic capacity harbor fixed sequences differences between the three species, including the OXPHOS pathway.
