Harry Potter and the fate of the European barn owl

We characterise the genetic diversity of the current Tyto alba population in Belgium and compare this to the genetic diversity from before the Harry Potter hype. This comparison will highlight whether/how much genetic material from foreign subspecies has entered our local population. This project merges the tremendous knowledge on barn owls obtained from good citizen science with state-of-the-art technologies applied at RBINS which may lead to an important contribution to conservation research. If successfull, we envision that the Harry Potter story and the fate of the barn owl are likely to receive interest from policy makers concerned with the conservation of birds of prey.

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Funding

Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO)
Joint Experimental Molecular unit (JEMU)

Internal members

• Carl Vangestel
• Gontran Sonet
• Erik Verheyen

Other members

• Sofie Derycke (ILVO)
• Ludo Smets (Kerkuilenwerkgroep Vlaanderen)
• Isabel Lemahieu (Kerkuilenwerkgroep Vlaanderen)
• Nele Mullens (RMCA-Tervuren)
• Massimo Vergiliano (RMCA-Tervuren)