Population genetics of the
largest passerine Corvus corax
The raven is one of the most widespread bird species in the world. It is distributed nearly in the entire Northern hemisphere including major portions of North America, Europe, Asia and Northern Africa . Due to human persecution, the numbers and ranges of ravens declined dramatically in the middle of the 19th century. In Middle Europe, ravens originally bred in all larger forest areas. In the first decades of the 20th century more and more local populations disappeared. Finally, in the late 1920ies the raven was nearly extinct in Middle Europe. The last populations survived in three refuges, namely (i) Northern Germany and Southern Denmark , (ii) Eastern Poland and (iii) the Alps . Starting from these three refuges the recolonisation of the former range began when persecution stopped and first conservation activities (1940 - 1950) took place. Although ravens have been continually spreading for a few decades with a velocity of about 10km/y, they have not yet completely occupied their former range. At present, raven's distribution has reached the Rhine River in the West. Nevertheless, maps of the recent distribution show a gap between the Northern and Southern ranges in Central Germany . Although the data set concerning the actual raven distribution in Central Europe is quite good, the origin of the immigrated birds is not known. In our recent study, we use microsatellite DNA in order to detect cryptic genetic diversity in Middle European ravens. That may allow to make the recolonisation process more apparent. Furthermore, we would like to take a closer look at the phylogeography of the raven "species" Corvus corax ssp. using control region variabilities.
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 @ lab work |
 Recolonisation of Hesse, Germany. |
 Corvids in Poland. |
