Animal Genetics

The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding. Many aspects of human and animal behaviors have a strong genetic contribution. Individual variation in different behaviors is also found across animal populations. Animal models are increasingly being used to look for genes underlying these naturally occurring variations in behaviors and the most common species of animals used experimentally are mice and rats. This new and important book gathers the latest research from around the globe in this dynamic field of study with a focus on such topics as: phylogeography of finches and sparrows, pig genomics and transgenesis in biomedical research, epigenetic regulation in bovine cells, understanding the stress response through mouse genetics and others.