The People’s Parrot Inspires First Community-Sponsored Genome Project

Conservation genomics is a new discipline that is beginning to provide important information to scientists that could help us save endangered species and protect the global environment

by GrrlScientist for Forbes | @GrrlScientist

The critically endangered Puerto Rican Amazon parrot (Amazona vittata), known locally as the iguaca, is the only extant parrot endemic to the United States. Its closest relatives are thought to be the Cuban Amazon and the Hispaniolan Amazon.
(Credit: Pablo Torres-Baéz / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service / public domain.)

An international team of 16 scientists recently published their conservation genomics study…