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Why do birds engage in extra-pair copulation?

Abstract

Griffith and Montgomerie question our finding1 that extra-pair parentage in shorebirds correlates with the genetic similarity of social mates, on the grounds that band-sharing coefficients (calculated by comparing bands on DNA fingerprints) are unreliable for determining the degree of genetic similarity between two individuals.

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Correspondence to Bart Kempenaers.

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Blomqvist, D., Andersson, M., Küpper, C. et al. Why do birds engage in extra-pair copulation?. Nature 422, 833–834 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/422833b

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