Clues to Conserving the Golden Eagle Hidden in Its DNA
Sequencing the raptor鈥檚 genome reveals new insights into protecting it from wind turbines and other threats.
Each year, wind turbines kill roughly birds, and the death toll could climb to more than a million by 2030. To curb the carnage, for eagles in particular, one proposal has been to apply to blades to make them more visible to birds. Turns out, it鈥檚 a strategy that likely wouldn鈥檛 help golden eagles: The birds aren鈥檛 sensitive to ultraviolet light, scientists recently discovered when they sequenced the species鈥 genome.
"Having the golden eagle genome in hand could directly affect the way we make conservation and management decisions," says Jacqueline Doyle, postdoctoral research associate at Purdue University and the first author of the study, published in .
The research also suggests that golden eagles may have a very sharp sense of smell, indicating that the birds may rely more heavily on the sense to locate prey than long believed. Meanwhile, the genetic markers can also help scientists track the evolution of different families of genes and identify potential golden eagle pathogens, parasites, and symbiotic organisms, says J. Andrew DeWoody, study co-author and geneticist at Purdue University.
DeWoody and colleagues took the blood sample for the sequencing project from a golden eagle they captured with a spring-loaded net in California. While they had the magnificent bird in hand, they also attached a GPS tracking device, making it possibly the first wild bird to have its genome sequenced and be tracked at the same time, DeWoody says.
The bird is part of a large ongoing tracking project that includes 25 golden eagles. In addition to the genetic work, researchers are trying to understand how the raptors respond to different terrain and vegetative cover in order to get a sense of how the birds might react to the development of wind turbines in those areas.
The golden eagle joins the , , and chicken in the small, but growing list of birds whose genomes have been sequenced. To date, most birds whose genomes have been sequenced have been species used for basic research; the zebra finch, for example, is studied in part because learning song has close similarities to acquiring human speech.
The decreasing cost of genome sequencing is opening the door to conservationists. 鈥淣ow we can sequence the genome of a species of some conservation concern鈥 rapidly and relatively cheaply, says Doyle says.
And like the golden eagle, the secret of what will and won鈥檛 work when it comes to conserving the world around us may be in the genes. Given the dire straights so many avian species face, a new tool that could help uncover clues to safeguarding birds is just what the doctor ordered.
