2026 Undergraduate Research Showcase

Primer Design for the Sexing of Alectoris chukar

Document Type

Student Presentation

Presentation Date

4-24-2026

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Emily Meredith and Dr. Jennifer Forbey

Abstract

The chukar partridge (A. chukar), like many bird species, has little sexual dimorphism, making morphology-based sexing difficult, requiring the use of molecular sexing; typically, using the Chromodomain Helicase DNA-binding (CHD) gene on the W and Z chromosomes. Using this method, a female bird (ZW) will have two bands on an agarose gel, while a male bird (ZZ) would have only one. Current primer sets used for sexing are unreliable and traditionally either created using Gallus gallus sequences or are designed as general avian primers. Additionally, an annotated sequence for chukars doesn’t exist. Therefore, we aimed to use phylogenetic bracketing to find conserved sequences to create new primers. The species chosen are Anas anas, Anas platyrhynchos, and Gallus gallus. This experiment used CHD1 sequences from NCBI and analyses in Benchling to create the primers and tested them on DNA isolated from tissue samples to gauge the efficacy of these new primers against the traditional set. The ability to reliably sex chukar individuals using molecular techniques would allow researchers to better use this widespread, generalist species as a marker of ecosystem health and composition and let hunters be active participants in science and conservation.

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