Hassan Habibi

Global environmental change and rapid destruction of natural habitats necessitate the conservationofendangeredandthreatenedbirdsofprey.Recently,molecularsexidentification methods based on amplification of introns of chromodomain-helicase DNA binding protein1 (CHD1) have provided valuable tools for ecological study and conservation breeding programs of birds. These methods employ a primer pair flanking an intron which varies considerably in lengthbetweentheaviangametologsCHD1ZandCHD1W.Herein,wetesttheapplicabilityof CHD1Z and CHD1W as universal tags for molecular sex identification in birds of prey of Iran. We showed successful sex identification in 22 species of birds of prey using feathers as the source of DNA. The results suggest that the regions of CHD1W and CHD1Z amplified in this studyareconservedamongmostofFalconiformes,enablingaccuratesexidentificationinbirds of prey.