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Drastic population fluctuations explain the rapid extinction of the passenger pigeon
Open accessAbstract
Significance: The number of passenger pigeons went from billions to zero in mere decades, in contrast to conventional wisdom that enormous population size provides a buffer against extinction. Our understanding of the passenger pigeon’s extinction, however, has been limited by a lack of knowledge of its long-term population history. Here we use both genomic and ecological analyses to show that the passenger pigeon was not always super abundant, but experienced dramatic population fluctuations, which could increase its vulnerability to human exploitation. Our study demonstrates that high-throughput–based ancient DNA analyses combined with ecological niche modeling can provide evidence allowing us to assess factors that led to the surprisingly rapid demise of the passenger pigeon.
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“it is thought that the most common wild bird in human history, the passenger pigeon, had a population of 3–5 billion in the 1800s [47].”
From The broiler chicken as a signal of a human reconfigured biosphere (2018) · cites this paper as [47]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Hung, C.-M., Shaner, P.-J. L., Zink, R. M., Liu, W.-C., Chu, T.-C., Huang, W.-S., & Li, S.-H.
- Affiliations
- National Taiwan Normal University (TW)
- Department of Life Science and
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Institute of Statistical Science, Academia Sinica (TW)
- National Chung Hsing University (TW)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2014-06-16
- Volume
- 111
- Issue
- 29
- Pages
- 10636-10641
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4115547
- OpenAlex
- W2136216597
- Cited by
- 186
- References
- 50
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 6
- FWCI
- 10.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- NCHU Institutional Repository CRIS (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Council
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic diversity and population structure
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Avian ecology and behavior
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Forensic and Genetic Research
- Keywords
- passenger pigeon, extinct species, population fluctuations, effective population size, human-driven extinction, human disturbance, species vulnerability
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Chromosome Mapping, Food Supply, Geography, Markov Chains, Columbidae, Population Density, Population Dynamics, United States, Genome, Quercus, Extinction, Biological
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