A new article to be published in PNAS combines aDNA research with ecological niche modeling and population studies to examine the causes of passenger pigeon extinction. You may think you already know why and how they went extinct, and yeah, you’re probably right. But it’s always good to get more genetic data on Ectopistes, and potentially the most interesting part of the study will be their work on population dynamics of passenger pigeons. A more detailed look at this paper is in the works.
The article, Drastic population fluctuations explain the rapid extinction of the passenger pigeon, is pay-per-view at the PNAS website.