DNA reveals identity of Passenger Pigeon

Birdwatch ^ | 30 Oct 2010 | Birdwatch

[Palter]

The extinct Passenger Pigeon, once the most numerous bird species in the world, has had its closest living relatives identified by DNA extracted from museum specimens.

The Passenger Pigeon was a forest nomad, breeding in vast colonies and following sporadic crops of acorns and chestnuts around the dense deciduous forests of the eastern and central United States. the forests were once so vast that they could support tens of millions of the birds, which were known to form flocks so huge that they darkened the sky when dispersing. This made them easy prey for hunters' guns, and the greed and over-exploitation of hunters and wholesale destruction of their habitat led to their shockingly rapid extinction.

The last individual, named Martha, died in Cincinnati Zoo on 1 September 1914, though it was actually born and raised in captivity and the last wild bird was recorded in Ohio in January 1900.

Mitochondrial DNA from a separate organelle in the cell than the nucleus, which has its own rapidly-evolving genome making it useful for detecting evolutionary rates and relationships, was analysed from Passenger Pigeon specimens at three North American museums. It was compared to samples of the same gene segments from 79 other species of pigeon and dove. Not only did this reveal the relationships of the extinct bird, but it also showed that American columbids may have originated from a colonisation event from South-East Asia, probably arriving when sea levels were lower over the Bering Strait, prior to the Pleistocene.

The analysis also showed three clear Nearctic clades, probably indicating at least two separate colonisation events. However, the most basal clade in the Columbidae, the Columbina Ground Doves, is American, and it is therefore possible that pigeons and doves may have originated in the Americas, dispersed to Eurasia, and then dispersed back again.    

Passenger Pigeon was previously thought to be most closely related to Mourning Dove, a familiar and common North American bird, but the new analysis has shown that it was in  fact closer to Band-tailed Pigeon Patagioenas fasciata, and both are in an endemic New world sister group to the Eurasian Columba and Streptopelia  pigeons and doves. Interestingly, Band-tailed Pigeon also shares a louse species with its extinct relative, further supporting the relationship.

However, the Passenger Pigeon was so different to all other columbids that it remains the sole representative of its own genus Ectopistes, a unique and diverged lineage that has now disappeared forever. It is, however, speculated in some quarters that DNA from museum specimens may one day be used to clone the species, but this is certainly unachievable for the foreseeable future. The story of the Passenger Pigeon remains one of the most chilling examples of what can happen to a robust and widespread species and habitat if they are exploited without restraint.

The full paper is cited as: Johnson, K P, Clayton, D H, Dumbacher, J P and Fleischer, R C (2010). The Flight of the Passenger Pigeon: Phylogenetics and Biogeographic History of an Extinct Species. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution  58: 455-458.

[SunkenCiv]

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[stefanbatory]

you can also eat acorns...

[ApplegateRanch]

As it happens, there IS a useful purpose for acorns!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we2iWTJqo98

[JEC]

Maybe you should get your head out of your a$$ and join those extinct animals.

[Pharmboy]

Absolutely correct! The most numerous bird species wiped out by hunters? Balderdash! It may very well have been the food shortage as you suggest, although I would vote for a parasite or virus. Just my opinion...

[gleeaikin]

I think the death of the chestnuts came some time after the death of the passenger pigeons. What finalized the demise of the PPs is that they needed a population of around 1,000 to generate enough excitement to trigger their sex hormones into functioning. With a very small population, no sex hormones, no next generation.

[gleeaikin]

While the last PP died in 1914, the population of PPs was decimated from 1870 to 1890. The first sign of the Chestnut blight was found in NY City in 1904, and spread at the rate of 50 miles a year, so Chestnut blight was NOT the cause or even an influence in PP extinction.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks gleeaikin, and ditto. A great number of Passenger Pigeons were shot right in their roosts here in Michigan, and shipped east for consumption as squab.

Cloning the PP?
http://tiger_spot.mapache.org/Biology/extinct2.html

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 10/31/2010. Thanks again Palter.

Mitochondrial DNA... from Passenger Pigeon specimens at three North American museums... was compared to samples of the same gene segments from 79 other species of pigeon and dove. Not only did this reveal the relationships of the extinct bird, but it also showed that American columbids may have originated from a colonisation event from South-East Asia, probably arriving when sea levels were lower over the Bering Strait, prior to the Pleistocene.

Imagine, even birds are thought to have walked over Beringia, at least according to the landlubber Clovis-first-and-only drones.

The analysis also showed three clear Nearctic clades, probably indicating at least two separate colonisation events. However, the most basal clade in the Columbidae, the Columbina Ground Doves, is American, and it is therefore possible that pigeons and doves may have originated in the Americas, dispersed to Eurasia, and then dispersed back again...

Nearctic clades are pretty much my favorite clades. :^)

Band-tailed Pigeon also shares a louse species with its extinct relative, further supporting the relationship.

Patagioenas fasciata, of South America.