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Related Concept Videos

Genetic Variation01:25

Genetic Variation

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Genetic variation is the diversity in DNA sequences found among individuals of the same species. This diversity is crucial for a species' survival because it helps organisms adapt to environmental changes. Genetic variation begins with fertilization, where an egg and sperm cell merge. Each of these cells carries 23 chromosomes, up to 46 in the fertilized egg. Chromosomes are long DNA strands that contain genes, the basic units of heredity.
Genes exist in different versions called alleles,...
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What is Variation?01:14

What is Variation?

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Apart from the measures of central tendency, distribution, outliers, and the changing characteristics of data with time, an important characteristic of any data set is its variation or spread. In some data sets, the data values are concentrated closely near the mean; in others, the data values are more widely spread out from the mean.
The range, standard deviation, standard error, and variance are the different measures of variation.
Range: The range is the difference between its maximum and...
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What is Population Genetics?01:25

What is Population Genetics?

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A population is composed of members of the same species that simultaneously live and interact in the same area. When individuals in a population breed, they pass down their genes to their offspring. Many of these genes are polymorphic, meaning that they occur in multiple variants. Such variations of a gene are referred to as alleles. The collective set of all the alleles within a population is known as the gene pool.
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Genetics of Speciation02:16

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Speciation is the evolutionary process resulting in the formation of new, distinct species—groups of reproductively isolated populations.
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Conservative Site-specific Recombination and Phase Variation02:53

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Because the DNA segments are cut and reorganized in a direction-specific manner, site-specific recombination has emerged as an efficient genetic engineering technique. Flippase and Cyclization recombinases or Flp and Cre, respectively, are two members of the tyrosine recombinase family derived from bacteriophages, that are used to mediate site-specific DNA insertions, deletions, and targeted expression of proteins in mammalian cell lines.
The recognition sites for Cre recombinase called LoxP...
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Variation01:19

Variation

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An important characteristic of any set of data is the variation in the data. In some data sets, the data values are concentrated closely near the mean; in other data sets, the data values are more widely spread out from the mean. The most common measure of variation, or spread, is the standard deviation, which is the square root of variance.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 16, 2026

Determining the Likelihood of Variant Pathogenicity Using Amino Acid-level Signal-to-Noise Analysis of Genetic Variation
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Determining the Likelihood of Variant Pathogenicity Using Amino Acid-level Signal-to-Noise Analysis of Genetic Variation

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Genetic variation interacts with experience to determine interindividual differences in learned song.

David G Mets1,2,3,4, Michael S Brainard1,2,3,4

  • 1Department of Physiology, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158; dmets@phy.ucsf.edu msb@phy.ucsf.edu.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|December 28, 2017
PubMed
Summary

Song tempo in songbirds shows strong genetic influence, but experience significantly modifies this. Enriched social learning can override genetic predispositions in learned vocalizations.

Keywords:
GXEbehaviorgeneticslearningsongbird

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Behavioral Genetics
  • Animal Behavior

Background:

  • Vocal learning in songbirds is a key model for understanding learned behaviors.
  • Interindividual differences in learned song are influenced by both genetics and experience.
  • The interaction between genetic and experiential factors in shaping complex learned phenotypes remains poorly understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the interplay of genetics and experience in determining song tempo, a learned vocal trait in songbirds.
  • To determine the heritability of song tempo under different learning conditions.
  • To assess the impact of enriched social tutoring versus computer-based tutoring on song tempo variation.

Main Methods:

  • Juvenile Bengalese finches from diverse genetic backgrounds were tutored with synthetic songs varying in tempo.
  • Song tempo heritability was assessed under computer-based tutoring.
  • A separate group received enriched social tutoring to evaluate the influence of experience.
  • Computer-tutored birds showed high heritability and low experiential influence on song tempo.
  • Live tutoring significantly increased the influence of experience and decreased genetic influence on song tempo.

Main Results:

  • Song tempo exhibited significant heritability in computer-tutored songbirds.
  • Experiential influence on song tempo was minimal under computer-based instruction.
  • Enriched social tutoring dramatically increased the impact of experience on song tempo.
  • Live tutoring significantly reduced the apparent genetic contribution to song tempo variation.

Conclusions:

  • Song tempo in songbirds has strong heritable genetic components.
  • The degree of heritability for song tempo is highly dependent on the quality and type of learning experience.
  • Enriched learning environments can modulate or overcome genetic predispositions in complex learned behaviors.
  • These findings suggest that heritability estimates for complex learned phenotypes may be contingent on specific experiential contexts.