Studying the Stutter-Steppers

The Attwater’s prairie chicken was in the news recently. Its population in Texas has dropped to alarmingly low levels, reflecting a downward trend of prairie chicken numbers across the central United States.

Here’s video of the male Attwater’s prairie chicken’s courtship display, recorded by the Houston Zoo.

Reading an article in The New York Times about the Attwater’s prairie chicken reminded me of a University of Arkansas connection to the wild bird.

Some background:

In Illinois, an estimated 14 million greater-prairie chickens were stutter-stepping on their display grounds in the 1800s. By the end of the 20^th century, their numbers had dwindled to a few hundred.

Overhunting, egg collection and habitat destruction are the main causes for the bird’s decline. Recently, drought has further eroded the population. There are now less than 100 known greater-prairie chickens left in the state.

In 2010, biologists Michael and Marlis Douglas, then co-directors of the Illinois Conservation and Molecular Ecology Lab at the Illinois Natural History Survey, initiated a genetic survey of remaining male prairie chickens in Illinois, in collaboration with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

The U of A connection:

The Douglases joined the Department of Biological Sciences faculty in 2011 and continued the greater prairie-chicken study here.

The Douglases, along with postdoctoral research associate Whitney J.B. Anthonysamy and graduate student Steven Mussmann (both now at the U of A), and postdoctoral research associate Mark Davis in Illinois, obtained DNA from prairie-chicken feathers to identify individual males. The birds shed feathers during the breeding season because of the strutting, dancing and fighting with other males at their display grounds, known as leks.

The challenge was to genotype every single feather to match it with a particular male. Using this technique, they were able not only to determine the minimal number of males on leks but also found that some males came to the same lek over a four-year period. That’s a surprising finding, considering adult greater prairie-chickens were assumed to live an average of only one to two years in the wild.

To boost the tiny populations of greater prairie-chicken, about 100 of the birds from Kansas were translocated in 2014 to the leks in Illinois.

“The DNA database will track and identify the integration of birds from Kansas into the leks from Illinois,” the research team wrote in an article published in the Fall 2014 issue of Illinois Audubon magazine. “To do so, all birds from Kansas will be identified according to their DNAs and feathers subsequently collected from Illinois leks can be matched with birds from Kansas, thus allowing movements and survival to be quantified.”