SIMILAR-sized animals have wildly different genome sizes, but no one has
known why. Now researchers from Glasgow University have found that, in birds at
least, genome size is related to longevity.
In vertebrates, genome size, known as the C-value, varies enormously, from
0.4 picograms in a pufferfish to 142 pg in the African lungfish. This variation,
mainly due to differing amounts of non-coding DNA, seems unrelated to an
animal’s complexity, a puzzle dubbed the C-value paradox.
Bird genomes, which vary from 2 pg to 3.8 pg, also seem unrelated to species
size. For instance, the black-headed gull has a much…
