Natural selection shaped the rise and fall of passenger pigeon genomic diversity

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 358; no. 6365; pp. 951 - 954
• Main Authors: Murray, Gemma G. R., Soares, André E. R., Novak, Ben J., Schaefer, Nathan K., Cahill, James A., Baker, Allan J., Demboski, John R., Doll, Andrew, Da Fonseca, Rute R., Fulton, Tara L., Gilbert, M. Thomas P., Heintzman, Peter D., Letts, Brandon, McIntosh, George, O’Connell, Brendan L., Peck, Mark, Pipes, Marie-Lorraine, Rice, Edward S., Santos, Kathryn M., Sohrweide, A. Gregory, Vohr, Samuel H., Corbett-Detig, Russell B., Green, Richard E., Shapiro, Beth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Association for the Advancement of Science 17-11-2017; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Animals; Biodiversity; Biological evolution; Birds; Cell Nucleus - genetics; Columbidae - genetics; Evolution; Evolution & development; Extinction; Extinction, Biological; Genes, Mitochondrial - genetics; Genetic diversity; Genetic Variation; Genomes; Genomics; Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400; Mathematics and natural science: 400; Mitochondria; Mutation; Natural selection; North America; Passengers; Pigeons; Population Density; Population genetics; Population number; Recombination; Selection, Genetic; Species extinction; Stability; VDP; Vertebrates; Zoofysiologi og komparativ fysiologi: 483; Zoologiske og botaniske fag: 480; Zoology and botany: 480; Zoophysiology and comparative physiology: 483
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.aao0960

The extinct passenger pigeon was once the most abundant bird in North America, and possibly the world. Although theory predicts that large populations will be more genetically diverse, passenger pigeon genetic diversity was surprisingly low. To investigate this disconnect, we analyzed 41 mitochondrial and 4 nuclear genomes from passenger pigeons and 2 genomes from band-tailed pigeons, which are passenger pigeons’ closest living relatives. Passenger pigeons’ large population size appears to have allowed for faster adaptive evolution and removal of harmful mutations, driving a huge loss in their neutral genetic diversity. These results demonstrate the effect that selection can have on a vertebrate genome and contradict results that suggested that population instability contributed to this species’s surprisingly rapid extinction.