a rigorous genomics study of prairie chickens in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas led by Purdue University scientists has found evidence of hybridization between species with no clear indication of genetic problems such as inbreeding.
The preexisting data came from 433 greater and lesser prairie chickens, mostly the latter, spanning 10 years and collected by researchers in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. The research team sequenced the entire genome of each bird an average of four times. Each genome consisted of about a billion nucleotides, the small molecules that make larger DNA molecules.
The team needed supercomputers at Purdue’s Rosen Center for Advanced Computing and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to process more than a trillion nucleotides of data.
“The vast majority of the prairie chickens depend on privately owned agricultural working lands. This speaks to the importance of practical wildlife conservation efforts that support sustainable grasslands, cattle production and private landowner incentives.”
Genomic analyses of prairie chickens cast doubt on species classifications
Despite my title pun this is cool info. I wish they did the same work on the heath hen, etc.