Lazarus ecology: Recovering the distribution and migratory patterns of the extinct Carolina parakeet.

ABSTRACT: The study of the ecology and natural history of species has traditionally ceased when a species goes extinct, despite the benefit to current and future generations of potential findings. We used the extinct Carolina parakeet as a case study to develop a framework investigating the distributional limits, subspecific variation, and migratory habits of this species as a means to recover important information about recently extinct species. We united historical accounts with museum collections to develop an exhaustive, comprehensive database of every known occurrence of this once iconic species. With these data, we combined species distribution models and ordinal niche comparisons to confront multiple conjectured hypotheses about the parakeet's ecology with empirical data on where and when thi

SUBMITTER: Burgio KR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5528215 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature