Genomic monitoring of the critically endangered takahē in Aotearoa New Zealand
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Background
- Critically endangered flightless rail endemic to New Zealand
- One single wild population was rediscovered in 1948 in the Murchison Mountains
- Recently bottlenecked population (~120 individuals in 1980)
- Currently ~500 individuals
- Monitoring of genomic diversity, inbreeding and population structure will guide conservation management
- Population-wide genomic data enables non-invasive realtime in situ genomic monitoring