Discovering the traits of extinct birds

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Looking to inform the conservation of critically endangered bird species, University of Utah biologists completed an analysis identifying traits that correlate with all 216 bird extinctions since 1500.

Species most likely to go extinct sooner were endemic to islands, lacked the ability to fly, had larger bodies and sharply angled wings, and occupied ecologically specific niches, according to research published this month.

While some of these findings mirror previous research on extinct birds, they are the first to correlate bird traits with the timing of extinctions, said lead author Kyle Kittelberger, a graduate student in the School of Biological Sciences.

“I’ve been very interested in extinctions and understanding the species that we’ve lost and trying to get a sense of how we can use the past to better inform the present and future,” said Kittelberger, who is completing his dissertation on how the bodies and wings of certain species of migratory songbirds have changed in response to climate change.

His team’s analysis tapped into BirdBase, a dataset of ecological traits for the world’s 11,600+ bird species compiled by U biology professor Ça?an ?ekercio?lu and the Biodiversity and Conservation Ecology Lab at the U. The team simultaneously analyzed a broad range of biogeographical, ecological and life history traits previously associated with extinction and extinction risk for bird species that have gone extinct as well as those that lack recent confirmed sightings and have therefore disappeared.

“Importantly, we examine biological correlates of bird extinctions through the lens of when birds went extinct, providing a novel extinction timing element that helps better inform why birds with certain traits disappeared when they did,” Kittelberger wrote in a series of posts on X. By identifying traits that most predispose birds to extinction, the findings can help guide conservation efforts of hundreds of species that are at peril.

“One of the strengths of the approach that we use is we compared all of these traits simultaneously against each other, whereas a lot of previous studies in the literature just look at traits in isolation.”

While only around 2% of the world’s bird species have gone extinct since 1500, the year Kittelberger’s analysis begins, even more had already disappeared by then. Before 1500, however, there is not as reliable a record of the birds that went extinct and data on their traits … Read More