Should birds with rare genes get first priority?
Posted by staff / April 14, 2014 Bird speciesGavin Thomasplant sciences departmentspecies conservation
A new approach to species conservation, applied to all 9,993 known bird species, prioritizes genetic and geographic rarity.
“Not all species are evolutionarily equal—some have few close relatives that share their DNA,” says Gavin Thomas from the University of Sheffield’s animal and plant sciences department. “These species are irreplaceable. If they are driven to extinction, millions of years or evolutionary history goes with them.”
Full story and list of 100 most unique and endagered birds at Futurity.
Photo credit: Adamantios/Wikimediacommons
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