More than 10,000 species of birds are alive today, from the smallest hummingbird to the largest ostrich. Researchers have now captured a broad sampling of genomic information from across the avian tree of life.
“Dense sampling of bird diversity increases power of comparative genomics”, published this month in Nature, reports on a large collaborative effort that includes members of the Friesen lab (Queen’s University Biology Department): Professor Dr. Vicki Friesen, and former PhD students Dr. Anna Tigano and Dr. Scott Taylor.
The main findings of this paper include the reporting on the genomes from 363 species of bird (encompassing 92.4% of bird families), 267 of which have been sequenced for the first time. This data has been produced for the Bird 10,000 Genomes (B10K) Project, which aims to sequence the genomes of all extant bird species, and is used to generate a super-phylogeny for the class Aves.
This collaboration and data collection have created an incredible publicly available genomic resource. Results will facilitate many future studies in evolution, ecology and molecular genetics, from evolutionary relationships among avian families, through the genomic basis of adaptations, to mechanisms of molecular evolution. Results will also aid conservation, for example by clarifying the relationships among species and providing baseline information for population-level sequencing.
