Even bird enthusiasts will admit the southwestern willow flycatcher isn’t very flashy. But in studying the DNA of this brownish-olive songbird, scientists say they have found something remarkable: evidence that the endangered bird is adapting at the genetic level to climate change.These genetic changes are not visible to the human eye — but the birds are now probably better equipped to weather increasingly wet and humid days in southern California, the researchers found.
This required taking small clippings from the birds’ toe pads. “That’s not a ton of genetic material to work with,” Turbek said. The researchers determined that these genes may have been introduced into the birds as they intermixed and bred with willow flycatchers from the Pacific Northwest and Desert Southwest. The new genetic material that proved helpful for survival would then have been passed on.Turbek said this finding could inform future conservation efforts.
Animals with the largest genomes, such as salamanders and grasshoppers, are still out of reach, said Renee Catullo, a biology lecturer at the University of Western Australia whoa literature review on the subject. “But we’re getting some unbelievable information from old specimens that 10 years ago we thought would have been impossible,” she added. “It’s a huge acceleration.”
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