A&M research could stop bobwhite quail's alarming decline

Once the most popular gamebird in the nation, the bobwhite quail has suffered huge population losses, an alarming trend that has been noted for decades.

Now, researchers at Texas A&M University are hopeful that a high-intensity project to decode the plump little bird's entire genome will help its long-term chances for survival.

Chris Seabury, a genetics professor at A&M's Department of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, led a research team that recently finished the first "draft genome assembly" for a wild bobwhite quail.

"By sequencing and assembling the bobwhite quail genome, the team produced the most comprehensive resource currently available for cutting-edge interdisciplinary research in the bobwhite," Seabury said in a prepared statement.

The peer-reviewed research was published Wednesday in the March 2014 issue of the open-access scientific journal PLOS ONE.

Nicknamed Pattie Marie, the quail whose leg muscle tissue provided DNA for the research, was donated by a Texas hunter, Seabury said.

Other A&M members of the team were Professor Ian Tizard, director of the Schubot Exotic Bird Health Center; Donald Brightsmith, professor with the Schubot center; A&M research assistants Yvette Halley and Eric Bhattarai.

The project, which took two years to complete, also involved research colleagues Jerry Taylor and Jared Decker, University of Missouri; Charles Johnson and Dale Rollins, A&M AgriLife Research; and Markus Peterson, A&M's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences.

Two private-industry scientists, Scot E. Dowd and Paul M. Seabury, also took part.

Once the DNA was isolated, it was then fragmented for sequencing, Seabury said by email.

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A&M research could stop bobwhite quail's alarming decline