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In the breeding season f 2018, we found a much larger egg in one nest of Cinereous Tit (Parus cinereus) in Zuojia Nature Reserve, Jilin Province, China. The tit pair abandoned their nest soon after the alien egg hatched, which resulted in the death of the foreign chick. Based on DNA identification, this foreign chick was confirmed as a Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major), suggesting that the woodpecker laid or carried one of her own eggs into the tit nest. Limited cavity availability as the woodpecker lost its own nest might have contributed to this occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insertion/deletion polymorphism (InDel) genetic markers refer to insertion or deletion of DNA fragments into genomic DNA, which have advantages in the identification of degraded samples. In this study, we independently screened 66 highly polymorphic InDel markers from the dbSNP database to establish a multiplex PCR system for forensic DNA identification using next-generation sequencing system (66-plex InDels). We assessed the population genetic data among 251 Chinese Han population using this system and evaluated their potential forensic application. The results showed that all 66 InDel loci conformed to the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (P>0.000 758), and all the pairwise InDel loci were in linkage equilibrium after Bonferroni correction. The mean observed heterozygosity (Ho) was 0.482, the mean expected heterozygosity (He) was 0.483,the mean discrimination power (DP) was 0.612, the mean polymorphism information content (PIC) was 0.365, the total discrimination power (TDP) reached 0.999 999 999 999 999 999 999 999 999 428 18. The cumulative power of exclusion for 66 InDel loci was 0.999 739 in duo cases (CPE duo ) and was 0.999 999 999 417 in trios cases (CPE trio ). The results show that the 66 InDel loci have high genetic polymorphisms in the Chinese Han population and can be used independently for forensic DNA identification and paternity testing.