Field studies on Cory's shearwater Calonectris diomedea, which were carried out in a breeding colony in the Aegean Sea between 1989 and 1993, revealed that almost all breeding mates stay together over many consecutive years. Mates usually changed when one partner disappeared (e.g. through death), whereas 'divorce' occurred at a rate of 2.7%. Since buds are nesting at very close quarters, the potential for extrapair copulation (EPC) and subsequent extrapair fertilization (EPF) seems to be high. Multilocus DNA fingerprints were used to determine the true parentage of 46 offspring (broods contain a single chick only) from 29 pairs (few pairs were studied in two and three successive years). There were no cases of extrapair paternity.

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Cytochrome b, DNA Sequence, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Molecular Evolution, Procellariidae The cytochrome b gene of three European taxa of the family of Procellariidae was amplified from total DNA and sequenced. The sequence comparison shows that the Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) is significantly distinct from shearwaters, whereas Cory’s (Calonectris diomedea) and Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) are closely related. Although the populations of C. dio­medea can be distinguished morphologically, the sequences of cyt b differ only slightly between the Atlantic and Mediterranean subspecies (i.e. C. d. borealis versus C. d. diomedea) and do not reveal other population differences within subspecies.