We collected male and female gonad and spleen samples from six species of Galloanserae (swan goose, Anser cygnoides; mallard duck, Anas platyrhynchos; wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo; helmeted guineafowl, Numida meleagris; Indian peafowl, Pavo cristatus and common pheasant, Phasianus colchicus) all kept under semi-natural conditions in captive populations. All samples were from individuals in their first breeding season collected from farms in the UK.  For each species, the left gonad and spleen were dissected separately from five male and five female individuals in the field, and immediately placed in RNAlater. However, for pheasant six male gonad and spleen samples were collected and from turkey only four male and two female spleen samples were collected. We extracted RNA using a Qiagen RNEasy kit, and The Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford, UK, prepared the mRNA using standard Illumina protocols. For sequencing, each of the spleen and gonad samples were tagged separately. WTCHG performed whole transcriptome shotgun sequencing (RNA-Seq) on an Illumina HiSeq 2000 with Truseq adapaters, with eight samples barcoded and pooled per lane, yielding 100bp paired end reads.

Sexual Dimorphism of Galloanserae

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