The Genomic Signature of Demographic Decline in a Long-Distance Migrant in a Range-Extreme Population.

ABSTRACT: Migratory birds are inherently vagile, a strategy that may reduce the impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation on genetic diversity. However, specialist resource requirements and range-edge distribution can counteract these benefits. The European nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus) is a long-distance migratory bird and resource specialist. Like other long-distance migrants, nightjar populations have declined across the British Isles and Northwestern Europe over the past century. With this decline well documented in the British Isles, there is a need to quantify its genetic impacts. We applied full genome resequencing to 60 historic (1841-1980) and 36 contemporary British nightjars. Nightjars exhibited a statistically significant 34.8% loss in heterozygosity and an increase in inbreeding over

SUBMITTER: Day G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12186721 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature