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The wildturkeyDNA project is back—and year one delivered far more surprises than expected.
Recorded on location at the NWTF Convention, Dr. Mike Brasher, DU's Senior Waterfowl Scientist, is joined by:
Recorded on location at the NWTF Convention, Dr. Mike Brasher, DU's Senior Waterfowl Scientist, is joined by:
Dr. Mike Chamberlain, NWTF Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia and Wild Turkey Lab
Dr. Phil Lavretsky, Associate Professor and wildlife geneticist at University of Texas at El Paso
Katie Tucker, DU Conservation Science Assistant
Together they break down year one results, insights from odd‑plumage birds and unexpected hybrids, and unveil expansion plans for 2026. This episode offers an inside look at one of the fastest‑growing wildlife genetics projects in North America—powered by turkey hunters.
In this episode:
- Why some "odd plumage" birds turned out to be 100% wild.
- Heritage breeds, hybrids, and true genetic mutations: what showed up and why it matters.
- Why turkey genetics were more complicated than expected.
- How expanded sampling will shed light on subspecies ranges across the country.
- Concern about inbreeding depression and the quest for answers.
- How hunter participation has become the engine behind modern wildlife genetics.
- Big plans for 2026, including expansion into Canada and incorporation of Osceola samples.
Listen now: www.ducks.org/DUPodcast
Send feedback: DUPodcast@ducks.org
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What is Ducks Unlimited Podcast?
Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Hey everyone, join us today as we talk turkeys with Doctor. Mike Chamberlain, Doctor. Phil Ovetsky and Katie Tucker of Wild Turkey DNA. We look back on the surprising discoveries from year one and talk about what's next for year two and what you need to be on the lookout for. Stay with us folks as we talk turkeys on the Ducks Unlimited podcast.
Mike Chamberlin:Can we do a mic check, please? Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, doctor Mike Brasher. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jared Henson. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Birddog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
Mike Brasher:Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I am your host on this episode, Mike Brazier, and I'm here at the National Wild Turkey Federation convention, Nashville, Tennessee. Early twenty twenty six, it is a fantastic showing. And if you've never been here, I would encourage you to do so.
Mike Brasher:We are here to talk about not about ducks, but about turkeys fittingly, and specifically wild turkey DNA. Most of our listeners with with the Ducks Unlimited podcast will be very familiar with duck DNA. You probably heard us introduce wild turkey DNA with some of our collaborating, researchers last year. This is an update on the status of that project and what is next for some really cool results. That's what we're gonna talk about today.
Mike Brasher:We've got joining me, Doctor. Mike Chamberlain with the University of Georgia and the Wild Turkey Lab. Mike, great to be with you again.
Mike Chamberlin:Good to see you.
Mike Brasher:And a guy that we've had on maybe once or twice, Doctor. Phil Lavretsky with the University of Texas, El Paso. His claim to fame originally was a waterfowl genetic Apparently that wasn't enough for him because now he's getting into turkey genetics as well. Phil, welcome back.
Phil Lavretsky:Yeah, thanks. Always happy to be here. Just always expanding on the edible birds.
Mike Brasher:There you go. And then another person that you've heard from a time or two or heard about a time or two, and if you're familiar with the Wild Tricky DNA Project, you will know her name, may know her voice, may have traded some emails with her. That is Katie Tucker, conservation science assistant with Ducks Unlimited. Katie, great to have you on with us.
Katie Tucker:Great to be here.
Mike Brasher:We're gonna jump right into this. And, Mike, I want you to give a high level overview. Remind folks what Wild Turkey DNA is.
Mike Chamberlin:Yeah. So this was a collaborative partnership that was launched last spring that involved the Wild Turkey Lab at the University of Georgia, NWTF, Ducks Unlimited, the Lowcountry Game Bird Foundation, and and UTEP. And the idea was to launch this this comprehensive study to evaluate genetics in wild turkeys. When we launched the project last spring, we were focused on turkeys that had odd plumage, and we really, frankly, weren't sure what to expect when we launched the project. The goal was to try to identify the source and origin of potential color phases in wild turkeys and to see if we could figure out why some of these birds have odd plumage.
Mike Chamberlin:And what we discovered opened up more questions than answers, and and now we're seeking to expand this this project moving forward to to address some some more complex questions at a broader scale.
Mike Brasher:One of the questions that I get every now and then, I'll go ahead and address it here. I actually got it last night. What is Ducks Unlimited involved? Why is Ducks Unlimited involved in a turkey project? And it's because of the discoveries that we made with regard to hunter assisted science through the Duck DNA platform.
Mike Brasher:We are using that same what we've learned, some of the systems that we've developed, some of the technology that we've developed to engage with hunters on this type of project, collecting tissue from harvested birds. Mike and I have known one another for many years, and so it was a natural collaboration between two premier conservation organizations. That's what Ducks Unlimited is proud to be involved in here in that capacity. I'll also say, as a person who had watched Duck DNA, had been part of Duck DNA for the first couple of years and saw how that was going and how it aligned with some of our understanding of what we were gonna be getting and seeing, it's been entertaining to watch how the results that you've been getting or the genetics of the turkeys that have been coming in have been, I don't know if frustrating is the right word, challenging, challenging, more challenging than you thought. From a science perspective, anytime you start making discoveries, that's like true discoveries.
Mike Brasher:That's a really cool thing, and I think you would say you're still in the discovery phase, have gone deeper into the discovery phase than you really thought you would get at this stage. Right, Phil? You thought you had it figured out.
Phil Lavretsky:Yeah. I thought I thought this was gonna be a couple months. And then the rabbit hole just kept getting deeper, and I'm actually not entirely sure how far that rabbit hole goes. So every time we get another sample, I have another question. Mike asked me, can I can we get at least the results for that?
Phil Lavretsky:And I say, I don't know. I don't know what this thing is. Every time we get another two, three samples from another region, I get a different genetic signature that that bounces around, and I realize when I see those things that we're missing a piece of the puzzle.
Mike Brasher:These are just for these are from the interesting, the odd looking birds. Right?
Phil Lavretsky:Yes. That's right. So the like Chamberlain just said, you know, we really like to get odd looking birds, and I was gonna be like, yep. That's what these eat these are. We had a few samples through our other collaborative projects that I was gonna use as sort of references kinda like Duck DNA, but we just weren't there like with Duck DNA.
Phil Lavretsky:I took a decade to up update reference samples for every species of waterfowl so we could do it appropriately. Here, it was a conversation over last year's Super Bowl, and I said, yeah. This should be easy. And then I realized very quickly that we need, you know, subspecies level, we need state level, we need location level sampling to really get this right because these turkeys are a lot more complex than our ducks.
Mike Brasher:And so tell me if I'm understanding this right. One of the reasons why it's more challenging and complicated is because even within these odd looking birds, you guys thought that you were gonna be able to easily identify the majority of these odd looking birds as as heritage birds. You thought there was gonna be a real strong heritage signal there. Maybe let's let's what is a heritage bird first before we go too far down that
Mike Chamberlin:road? Yeah. So when we launched this, we thought by looking at pictures of some of these these birds on social media that we would be able to pigeonhole what this was pretty easily to to Phil's point. And we thought some of these birds are probably truly wild birds. Some of these birds are are heritage birds and heritage birds are simply turkeys that were originally developed through breeding wild birds to domestic birds and then line or cross breeding them to obtain certain plumage patterns.
Mike Chamberlin:And then we thought we'd probably stumble across some some hybrids between a wild bird and a heritage bird. And what we've uncovered is all of that. Some of the the odd plumage that we're seeing is truly just genetic mutations in the wild population. We're also seeing instances where heritage birds are either escaping from from properties or being released into the wild. They're assimilating into the wild flock and then they're being harvested by hunters.
Mike Chamberlin:And we're seeing instances where we're we're seeing crosses between a wild bird and a heritage bird. And and even to the degree that some of these crosses occurred generations ago, we can't pin that down yet, but it's it's clear that, to Phil's point, it's much more complex than we thought. I I think when we did this podcast last spring, to Phil's point, couple months, we'll have this hammered out. And and and as it turned out, Phil mentioned reference samples. Basically, the idea that we need a comparison to to figure out what these birds are.
Mike Chamberlin:And now we've gone to the depth of getting hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of reference samples from trapped birds. My crews have trapped, you know, collaborators in other states that have trapped birds and collected blood samples. And as we continue to add these dozens and hundreds of birds, the picture's getting more clear, but it's still muddy.
Mike Brasher:And this is possible because of advances in genetic techniques. Right? Wild turkeys have been studied genetically for for decades Oh, yeah. But not at the level that you're asking questions. The same as with with the ducks that we're studying.
Mike Brasher:Right?
Phil Lavretsky:Yeah. Yeah. So so, I mean, turkeys have been studied genetically since you could do alizymes or anything of the earliest forms in the eighties. You know, they've been applied. But, again, to be able to do what we're doing now, what used to take where you you you you spent years creating markers specific to the species, specific to the study, the methods that we've developed doesn't care.
Phil Lavretsky:So we can we can work on turkeys and ducks and sheep and anything else that's got DNA and a bit of money, and and and it's gonna work. And so we were able to immediately apply it to turkeys this quickly and start building up the entire study relatively fast. I mean, we're one year in, and and I think we're breaking a few 100 samples close to a thousand, actually. So we're hoping to really build this up. And the and the problem why we need so many samples is because the the the questions ran deeper now than just the heritage.
Phil Lavretsky:It's also what's happening in mixed flocks. Right? We have a a strong history of translocations, meaning we move birds all over the place. We have we we often moved many of the subspecies. So am am I seeing wild wild hybrids?
Phil Lavretsky:Am I seeing true rios? Am I seeing myriums, or am I seeing local myriums? Then I can't figure out those those signatures for all those questions. We need more birds.
Mike Brasher:So if you haven't already, or if you're not already, certainly encourage you to follow Wild Turkey DNA on Instagram and Facebook. You will get to see and hear about some of these fascinating birds that these guys are studying and hunters are submitting tissue samples from and they're getting the genetic results back for, and Katie is interacting with the hunters on. I'm gonna talk to you here in a moment about your experiences interacting with the hunters, is an absolutely fantastic aspect of of this study. What have been some of the most surprising results thus far, Mike? Think can you share?
Mike Brasher:Yeah. What can you share?
Mike Chamberlin:I I think the most startling results are that some of these birds that I thought 100% would not be wild are wild. That that has been shocking to me. It speaks volumes to why you conduct research. Your suppositions, your your beliefs, your gut instinct, sometimes it's just garbage, and and that's what I've realized. And and it's caused a lot of text messages between Phil and I, a lot of emails, and a lot of back and forth.
Mike Chamberlin:But the other thing that I think is most, I guess, pronounced to me is just how turkey hunters have embraced this. How how people have they they love it. I mean, here at this convention, I don't know how many hundreds of people have come up to me, literally hundreds, shook my hand and said, that project is so cool. I'm so glad you're doing it. I we appreciate your efforts.
Mike Chamberlin:It's what you just keep keep doing it.
Mike Brasher:And how can we help? Yeah. We've had a lot of that as
Mike Chamberlin:A lot of how can I help, whether it's can I get you samples? Can I get you money? Can I mean and that that just tells me how the turkey hunting community sees relevance in what we're doing?
Mike Brasher:Yeah. And they they see that relevant. They they embrace that relevance because of their love for the bird. You see it everywhere you go at this convention, the love for the bird that we that caused us to get out in the woods, and certainly in the spring and the fall as well, causes us to do all sorts of of habitat management on our I mean, people obsess over these birds, every aspect of it, and it shows in this as well. That's a good segue, Katie, to ask you some of your impressions of working on this project.
Mike Brasher:You've worked on Duck DNA as well, so you've seen the response from this group of hunters. Are turkey hunters a little more fanatical than than duck hunters?
Katie Tucker:I'd say so. I mean, a lot of the phone calls that I've been answering from hunters and stuff are are hunters wanting me to to hear the whole story of the hunt of this bird, not just where it came from, but what its behavior was like, what it looked like on the trail camera, how many wild looking birds it was with. They share its story with you. All of it. They and I love to hear all of it.
Katie Tucker:So and it's it's good for data too to hear, you know, how far away from the nearest homestead was this bird that looks clearly like a heritage bird.
Mike Brasher:We've had several people pull us to the side this week pulling out their phone and and showing us the photo of this interesting looking turkey that they have on camera or that their buddy or their son or or their their their sister shot, you know, so people love to tell the stories, you get to hear a lot of those. And that was one of the first things, it was sort of a foundational aspect of this project as well as the DugDNA project is that if this is a hunter assisted science project, we want to put in place a process and a framework that allows us to connect directly, immediately, and intimately with the stories and the engagement of those hunters. And so for Wild Turkey DNA, you are that person when somebody I think the first year, if they wanted to apply for a kit, it was just send an email to katiewildturkeydna dot com. You're that Katie. And so you got all of those emails.
Mike Brasher:You have a support line, phone line as well, right? And so you answer those calls. Yes. What else? Do you answer the DMs I do.
Mike Brasher:On Instagram? So you get it all. Yes. Do you have any favorite stories? Oh, I don't wanna I shouldn't do that, should I?
Mike Brasher:I shouldn't I shouldn't ask you to play favorites. Memorable? Surprising?
Katie Tucker:Yes. There's one one participant. Can I name drop? Is that is that okay?
Mike Brasher:That is fine with me.
Katie Tucker:Joshua Sundberg is one of my favorites because he shot an all black bird in the Black Hills. Oh, nice. And the picture he sent was him with a boot on. How did you how did you follow this bird through the black? And then a couple weeks later, he's like, I don't know how I did it, but then he shot an all white bird No way.
Katie Tucker:I believe in Washington. That's really cool. The same season and everything. So
Mike Brasher:And so some of these some of the results from turkeys that were submitted last year are still in the lab, right? And that's because you want to make certain the complexity of what you're discovering, but you wanna be confident before you share those results, right?
Mike Chamberlin:A 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And Phil and I have talked about this, you know, some of the calls were very clear right out of the gate. But as we've obtained more reference samples, some of the calls in other words, what we're telling the hunter, the bird, the origin of the bird is changes.
Mike Chamberlin:And as that has occurred, that's caused us pause. Literally and figuratively, you know, we're putting the brakes on telling, you know, telling the hunters what we think this bird is because you only have one opportunity in the public eye. And if if you put yourself in as a scientist, if you put yourself in a situation where you're rescinding what you're what you're saying, then you lose credibility, and and we don't want that to occur. And we we don't wanna confuse hunters. So that that has us to your point, Mike, what that has us, there's a there's a a group of samples that we've we've got data on, but we're not a 100% sure what the origin of the bird is.
Mike Chamberlin:And those are the results we haven't shared because we we wanna be a 100% certain. And what will allow you to get to the
Mike Brasher:point where you have that level of comfort for for calling it? What what do you need? Like, and how far away are you? For any of those folks that may be listening to that listening to this that are among those that haven't gotten their results back. Now know Katie, you've received some communications from them asking politely, nobody's upset.
Mike Brasher:They're like, you explained the situation, just be patient. They said, nope, no problem, just
Katie Tucker:They're also so sweet, which is nice because I wish I could get them the results, but but Phil keeps telling me no.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. Trust you. Trust Katie is Katie is doing everything she can to pressure these two to get their results. What'll it take, and and how close are you? Yeah.
Mike Brasher:I think we'll More be samples. Right?
Phil Lavretsky:Yeah. It's it's it's more samples. Geographically, more samples than than what we than what we have right now. The problem is is that I thought having a few Miriam and a few Rio and a whole hell of a lot of Easterns would solve the problems and and be good enough, but it's just not good enough here. Right?
Phil Lavretsky:So for duck DNA, our ducks fly all around the world, and turkeys don't. And that creates particular particularly interesting but more complex structure that requires more samples than what I initially thought, and that's the whole point. Right? So we've got I'm sure whoever's re or reading listening to this, you're if you're from the Great Lakes region, you probably didn't get your your bird back because as we added a few birds into there, you know, what was being called a heritage started to bounce around, and I started to see see suggestions that there's, like, a Great Lakes Eastern bird. Something about them is different.
Phil Lavretsky:Same thing with the Southeast. Same thing with the Northeast. So we just need more samples to really figure it out. And even here in Tennessee, some of them look like a Great Lakes Southeast bird, and some of them didn't, and I still don't know what that is. And so that pause causes or that question about what that is causes me to pause to say, I, you know, I don't know.
Phil Lavretsky:Yeah.
Mike Brasher:I don't know. I had to pause too because I I rarely hear Phil say that. He's like, I don't know.
Mike Chamberlin:Well, what's really interesting is when we started tacking on big bunches of, excuse me, of reference samples like, you know, couple 100 birds from North Dakota, a couple 100 birds from the Southeast, couple 100 birds from South Carolina, etcetera etcetera. It started becoming more clear, and he was able to to go ahead and make definitive calls on some birds because we added so much data from that spot. Yeah. Well, now as we expand wild turkey DNA, that will allow us to fill in holes where we don't have a sample from that county or any of the counties around it in that state. And in some cases, we don't even have samples from that state.
Mike Brasher:Yeah.
Mike Chamberlin:And so getting additional samples this year will really allow us to answer the the original question, which was what's the origin of the odd plumage, but also to dig into these deeper questions that really kinda prompted this project to begin with.
Mike Brasher:And that's a great segue because that's where we wanna go next is what is what's next for wild turkey DNA? What's the involvement of hunters going forward for wild turkey DNA? We're gonna take a break right now. When we come back, we're gonna discuss those very things. So stay with us, folks.
VO:Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan and Bird Dog Whiskey after these messages.
Mike Brasher:Hey, everyone. Welcome back. We are here with Katie Tucker, Mike Chamberlain, and Phil Ovetsky, and we're still talking turkeys. And we wanna talk about what's next for wild turkey DNA. We were just talking about the some of the discoveries that are being made with regard to the plumages that we're seeing in these birds that were submitted this past year.
Mike Brasher:But there are a lot of other questions that require genetics to get at the answers. Some of these are going to have very strong, potentially very strong management implications. And so I'm gonna turn to Mike now and just ask to lay those out. What are the next set of research questions that you're gonna be targeting as you go forward with wild turkey DNA?
Mike Chamberlin:Yeah, For sure. So before this project ever started, Phil and I were collaborating on some other genetics questions related to hatched eggs. We basically use the eggshell membranes from hatched eggs to determine the sex of the poult, to look at relatedness, multi paternity, these types of questions. And through looking at those samples, something interesting started popping up and that being that in some of our populations, we had a signature for fairly low genetic diversity and we also saw levels of inbreeding potential that were a bit higher than you would want. And so we were curious, is that real or is that just something that's specific to these few study sites that I had data on?
Mike Chamberlin:And so as we launched this project focused around odd plumage, the the end goal has been from the start to broaden this effort to really nail down some of these more complex questions at across the species range. And so that's why now we're going to ask hunters to register through wildturkeydna.com. And, hopefully, once they do, we will select participants. Not all hunters that register will will be able to participate just because of funding restraints, but we will select hunters from across the species range from all states. We will send you kits, and the idea is to obtain samples across a broad geographic extent to to Phil's earlier point so that we can start filling in these holes and start trying to nail down genetic diversity, hybridization potential across the subspecies, inbreeding potential, and and some of these questions that if they bear out are are concerning from a management perspective.
Mike Chamberlin:If you have populations that have low genetic diversity, they're they're less resilient. And so these are things that we wanna try to address. I said this yesterday, and I've said it multiple times in this convention when I ask why are you doing this? One of the reasons that I'm interested in this is because I get paid to turn stones. And this is a stone that has potential management implications and therefore, it's it's it's a value to me as a as a scientist.
Mike Brasher:Phil, you have said you don't know what you don't know. Right?
Phil Lavretsky:Yeah. That's right.
Mike Brasher:Does that apply in this situation?
Phil Lavretsky:It is. It does. I mean, we thought we knew what these these odd looking birds were, you know.
Mike Brasher:Just at that level.
Phil Lavretsky:Yeah. Just even at that level, like, oh, yeah. No. White bird, that's a farm farm duck. That's a farm Farm turke.
Phil Lavretsky:Talking turkeys. I get so confused. So we we thought we we knew all these answers. Right? We're like, yeah.
Phil Lavretsky:It's gonna be definitive. It should be pretty easy. Even genetically, we we were able to get domestic heritage and wild turkey. So I was like, that's good enough. You know?
Phil Lavretsky:If these are all heritage, they'll just cluster with all the heritage birds, but that wasn't the case. So now we know that there's more more than one way to turn white, black, red, and all the other fancy colors that they make because not all of them are due to domestication. And they're signatures of something, and that something could be quite important for the populations as far as their potential, like Mike said here, for their adaptability in the landscape. Potentially, when we start seeing these color phases in a population may signify some genetic issues that could be remedied through direct management actions like translocations. And then we could facilitate that with knowledge and data so that way you could say, you don't just randomly pick individuals, but we can say, these groups are different.
Phil Lavretsky:Move x number of toms and y number of of hens every generation to create that link again, that connectivity that was, for whatever reason, lost in those populations.
Mike Brasher:So some of these concerns could come about because of the introduction of birds. Well, the appearance of heritage birds in a small population, but some issues of genetic that would require genetics for understanding the inbreeding issue could occur simply because of sort of the isolation of a population, independent of anything associated with heritage birds. So do we have exam well, two questions. Do we have I I think you hinted that you're already getting some signals that that may be happening in some areas with turkeys, and then I wanna come to you and ask what other animals have have researchers documented inbreeding as a a threat to the population?
Mike Chamberlin:So what do we know on turkeys? Yes. So we we already have data on some of the study sites that I've worked on for years, clearly showing a lack of gene flow from one part of that that study site. No. When I say site, I'm talking 100,000 acres plus.
Mike Chamberlin:Wow. We're we're already seeing clear signatures that there's a lack of gene flow within some of these populations, meaning that these birds are not mingling from one winter flock to the next. And so if you think about that kind of functionally, if you've got birds that are essentially staying around each other all of the time and they're not dispersing to the next group of birds, then through time, you become more related to one another. And that's what we're seeing in some of our populations where essentially everybody is a cousin or a second cousin to each other. And in those in those instances, that's a cause for concern because through time, your genetic diversity is going to be eroded and that that population is going to be less resilient to issues such as habitat loss, you know, fragmentation Disease.
Mike Chamberlin:Disease. And so, yeah, we're already seeing that. And that's part of the point here is that, okay, is that just just there? Right? Is it just that pop because I for the listener, you know, I I get paid to conduct applied research on certain study sites and we trap hundreds and hundreds of birds, but we can't study all populations.
Mike Chamberlin:Right? So I have tons and tons of data from 10 pockets of turkeys across, you know, the country right now. We need data now on all the pockets. Right? And that's why and and you can't do that practically through applied field studies where you catch birds and put GPS units, pull blood, hence, duck DNA, hence, wild turkey DNA where you use turkey hunters, citizen science to obtain data at large spatial scales that you otherwise could not do.
Mike Brasher:What are some other other animals, groups of ant, or species that have suffered from inbreeding depression where it's caused a population level effect that would, you know, be help people understand maybe they've heard some of these stories.
Phil Lavretsky:Yeah. I mean, Florida panther's the classical one. The other very classical ones are are grouse. So there's been lots of studies where they did translocations, but thankfully, they pulled blood and they could look. Did we move the question was, did we move enough individuals to not have this predicted erosion of of genetic material because you moved a bunch of, like, siblings, basically?
Phil Lavretsky:And they showed this, like, even if you if they moved 50 birds, but really they moved, like, 20 because of the genetic lineages, and it eroded quite quickly in a very linear way. So that those are some classical examples. Other would be Bobwhite. Bobwhite, within once they're inbreeding, especially in captivity, gets above point one, they they have about a 50% reduction in egg hatchability. Same thing, almost identical in salmonids.
Phil Lavretsky:So in the fisheries, both salmon fisheries as well as trout fisheries, if they don't bring in wild strain, within three generations, you see, again, that 50% reduction in egg hatchability.
Mike Brasher:Is it mostly on the production side where you you see the consequences, or is it a survival behavioral thing that can show up as well?
Phil Lavretsky:Oh, it can definitely be survival and behavioral. Right? So we we know that as you increase as you decrease genetic diversity in a population, that has implications in in many of the biological mechanisms. You don't know which one is gonna be impacted, but they always are. And in fact, there's actually some classical studies in humans as well, but we don't have to get into that.
Phil Lavretsky:A classical study would be the mallard duck. So so as we as we have inbreeding beetu every as we have breeding between game farm mallards and wild strain, you not only have a linear relationship with artificially increasing inbreeding within that clutch just because of that pairing, but that results in behavioral and ecological differences that are also genetically linked to the to the same correlation.
Mike Brasher:You're also gonna be looking at subspecies ranges as you get more samples. Don't you already know enough about the subspecies ranges in wild turkeys?
Mike Chamberlin:No. Yes. So during restoration, if you look at, you know, historic range maps of of wild turkey distribution, you know, the eastern subspecies was was basically Mississippi River East, although they crossed. You had Rio Grande that were in the South Southern Plains. You had Merriam's, which were our mountain bird.
Mike Chamberlin:You had Osceola's, which were, you know, Peninsula, Florida. And then you had Goulds, which were restricted to high elevation, you know, forest in in Northern Mexico and the Southwestern US. And what happened during restoration is Turkey started being translocated all over North America and the subspecies lines were blurred blurred, if not muddied or completely ignored. So you had some states out west that received multiple subspecies. The reason that that occurred is at the time biologists and state agencies didn't know what would work.
Mike Chamberlin:And the idea was to to restore the wild turkey not only to their former range, but to all of The US states where they could survive, which is only minus Alaska. And so you had literally, you had birds. For instance, states out west that receive Rio Grande subspecies birds at lower elevations and Merriam subspecies at higher elevations. And then right in the next state, the eastern subspecies was moved to lower elevations and and Merriams were moved up high. And so if you look at the range map, there's a lot of we think this is what this is, what this bird is in Idaho for instance, but we don't know.
Mike Chamberlin:And so part of of this project is to to really critically evaluate that. And also to the point, if if you think about it, mixing multiple birds from multiple subspecies, you know, in some ways would create natural hybrid vigor. And so although these birds are adapted, they're supposed to be they're adapted to living in a particular type of ecological setting like Merriam's or high elevation mountain bird. We know that wild turkeys have done quite well going outside of that. Right?
Mike Chamberlin:So subspecies move to places that we weren't sure they would do well have done quite well and they're and sometimes haven't. But the point being, through this project, we will get a pretty definitive handle on what the wild turkey is in areas where they were mixed.
Mike Brasher:So as you go forward this coming year, this spring twenty twenty six and subsequent years, depending on how the project goes and expands and and its continuation. As you get these samples in from hunters, you're gonna be asking for more than just odd looking birds this year. You're gonna be asking hunters to submit any turkey that they harvest, submit the the tissue from from those turkeys. You're gonna be able to will you be able to assign a subspecies ancestry to those yet? Do you have enough Yeah.
Mike Brasher:Reference samples? That's gonna be really cool.
Phil Lavretsky:Yeah. So we'll be able to do that. Right now, we're really lacking on myrians, so that's why it's really hard for me to call those. We I think we have nine, but really they're from three different states. Really, I only have, like, two per state, so there's those cause issues.
Phil Lavretsky:But as as Mike talked about earlier, when we added so initially when we looked at it, it was more like heritage domestic is different, and then you've got wild. And you could see that the Easterns were different from the others, and you could see some separation, but almost it was it was you had to you had to squint. Since we moved and gotten, you know, a couple 100 Easterns and a couple 100 Rios, those groups really separated out. And now I you can see them as
Mike Chamberlin:Very
Phil Lavretsky:clearly. Very clearly like daylight. So and and ghouls is very much separated. But the Miriams right now is a bit of a of a mystery pot because again, it's just a it's not enough samples to separate them
Mike Chamberlin:I literally went and shot or had colleagues that shot birds that were thought to be merriums. Yeah. And we and that's a critical point. We don't really know What we got. Those birds that
Mike Brasher:So how do you know? Do you kinda have to look at look and see where they cluster in your analysis relative to all of these others, and hopefully, you'll get a cluster that begins to pull away from the others, you'll and you'll have a lot of those, a lot of samples in between, which would be an indication of some in interbreeding between different subspecies. Right? But hopefully you're gonna find a cluster of those that you think that have been submitted from areas where you think are gonna be Miriams, and then hopefully, eventually enough of those will cluster in a space different from all the others, and then you'll say, that's the Miriam signature. Is that right?
Phil Lavretsky:Yeah. That's right. And the problem that that we've got is that we need more samples than I than I typically need because we don't know what's actually out there. Right? So a bird could look like a Miriam, but really it's a Miriam Rio because it's Nebraska or or or whatever.
Phil Lavretsky:So we need a lot more samples so we can actually get true Miriams with that where wherever they are, and and then we can start pulling them apart so we can say, this is a wild turkey, but it's really, you know, 40% Rio and 60% Miriam or whatever it is. And then, of course, we can go back to the records and ask the question, you know, is this a recent event or is it because of the direct management that was done decades ago?
Mike Brasher:Have you done any of the ancient DNA on turkeys yet? Not me, but I've already reached out to the groups that have. That have.
Phil Lavretsky:Okay. So and they're quite help out. Yeah. They're quite keen on it because, you know, they they only they were able to showcase that either ghouls or Miriams was the origin original bird used in the domestication. But I reached out actually about the whole inbreeding thing.
Phil Lavretsky:I was like, why am I getting so few markers, good markers, to assign ancestry? I was like, we're using the same techniques, and ducks give us almost five times the number of markers for the same analysis. And they told came back to me and said, we did ancient work, and your numbers look exactly like the numbers from, like, a turkey from five hundred years ago. Wow. So then I
Mike Brasher:was That's reassuring.
Phil Lavretsky:Right? Yeah. Yeah. And then I started thinking they must have their ecology is built in to to cause this. Right?
Phil Lavretsky:So how do we so the in addition to the fact that they have they're a leckingbird and they have these, like, smaller home ranges, us moving them declining back in the day, and then us moving them around in these sequential founder effects have created all sorts of consequences that we're trying to dig out.
Mike Brasher:We're gonna start wrapping this up here in a moment. Katie, I want to ask you a question. When you when you came into this project, how much exposure and familiarity did you have with with wild turkeys?
Katie Tucker:I didn't know there were subspecies.
Mike Brasher:Didn't even know there
Katie Tucker:were subspecies. One one big bird in the woods.
Mike Brasher:Well, you've learned that there is a lot of there's there's a lot of variation in turkeys all across this country, and it's really cool. I remember when we went hunting last spring, we had we were staying at a place that had different birds, different turkeys mounted, and you were, Mike, you were walking Katie through some of the distinguishing feather identifiers, and I was just trying to absorb a little bit of that because I'm not turkey guy either, although I have gotten into it the past few years, and so it's it's exciting to see this other side of of the conservation and hunting space, and tons of duck hunters are also turkey hunters, and we're happy to to bring this message to them. Katie, are you ready for the expansion that's about to happen here this spring?
Katie Tucker:I'm so ready. I wanna see the data. In fact, I have three goals. Okay. One is to get samples from Canada.
Mike Brasher:I think that's Can we can we mention what we're doing there a little bit?
Phil Lavretsky:Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Chamberlin:Okay. Yeah.
Mike Brasher:Katie, what's the plan?
Katie Tucker:Hopefully, we so the issue with getting samples from Canada has been important export permits for avian tissue. So we're hoping that we have a relationship with a researcher in Canada that will be able to receive the Canadian samples and use his export permit to get it to us because Phil has all the import permits that we need.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. Awesome. But So if you're Canadian hunter, Canadian turkey hunter, been looking forward to be to participating this year might be your chance if everything works out. And y'all need and want samples from Canada. Right?
Phil Lavretsky:Oh, heck yeah. Those those are the northern limits.
Mike Brasher:Nice.
Phil Lavretsky:Right? So so how they're there and what they do is is always an interesting aspect. When Studying studying species at their limits, at their geographical limits are usually the most interesting.
Mike Chamberlin:Yeah. And and what's really cool about birds in Canada is some of those populations are dealing with incredibly difficult weather conditions. And so to Phil's point, being able to get some data from those populations, think would be really interesting to to try to identify how are those birds able to to do that.
Katie Tucker:Katie, your other goals? Well, that's actually a segue because our one sample last year from a Canadian hunter was a white bird. Nice. So I wanna figure out for sure.
Mike Brasher:Wanna figure out what that is.
Katie Tucker:White plumage white plumage will be great because I wanna tell all these hunters that have white birds out there. Their birds are wild. It'd be great.
Phil Lavretsky:The unicorn in the woods.
Katie Tucker:Yes. Yep. And I want to learn more about the mossy head. Ah. Yes.
Mike Chamberlin:We actually have one in our dataset.
Mike Brasher:A legend of of this. I keep wanting know about mossy head. Is it a supposed subpopulation of turkeys? Yes. I say supposed because we're kind
Mike Chamberlin:of in discovery phase. True origin of
Phil Lavretsky:the old
Mike Chamberlin:turkey. Yeah. Smaller, lot of feathering on the head. And we had one that was harvested this year and and that was submitted, and it it clusters directly in with the eastern subspecies with right in the center of every other Eastern sample that that we have.
Phil Lavretsky:They also coexist with the yeti subspecies in there. Yes. Yeah. I believe they hunt them.
Mike Chamberlin:I have had
Mike Brasher:some I
Mike Chamberlin:I have had some interesting conversations about this this this potential on other podcast and yeah. The yeah. I'll just leave it
Mike Brasher:at that. And the Osceola, wanting, you know, the looking into the looking deeper into the genetics of the Osceola is another topic that's of great interest to a lot of hunters. I'm not we're not gonna get into that right now. I don't even know where any of that is. I'm not I don't I'm not on the email change or the text text message change chains, so I don't know where any of that current understanding is, but I know a lot of hunters will be wanting to know about the genetic uniqueness of those of those groups of birds.
Mike Brasher:So you'll have that information soon enough.
Mike Chamberlin:And that's basically a sample size issue right now as well because if you look, the Osceola samples that we have all came from a couple of birds that some NWTF folks shot and some birds that that I was I participated in the harvest through a veterans hunt. And so we don't have that many samples. And so right now, they're the the Osceola samples are clustering directly in with the Eastern subspecies samples. But as kinda like the Mariams and Rios, but as we add more data, there's a potential that they break out. There's also potential that they just stay clustered with the Eastern.
Mike Chamberlin:So They
Phil Lavretsky:they they make their own little cluster, but they are within the rest of the Eastern. So, again
Mike Brasher:So there's something a little bit different about
Phil Lavretsky:There's something a little
Mike Brasher:bit different that shows up genetically.
Phil Lavretsky:But again And we'll see as
Mike Chamberlin:Yeah. You know, once we have a 100 or 200. And and I'm actually I'm actually working with some industry partners that that Katie, they've come and talked to us this week, you know, outfitters that that will try to go beyond what we would get through just, you know, hunter participated, you know, through wild turkey DNA to really get a bunch of samples from Florida so that we can nail this question down because it is. It's a it's a pertinent question in the turkey hunting world, and we wanna provide, you know, rigorous answers.
Phil Lavretsky:And and onto that, I knew you were about to say something. Was gonna talk.
Mike Brasher:That's why I was trying to say something.
Phil Lavretsky:I learned I've I've learned how species delineations or geographically are just made up in so, like, having enough samples across Florida, we might be able to actually make a true line of Osceola versus, know, kinda these Southeastern easterns. Southeastern Eastern. Yes.
Mike Brasher:If that's a thing. Is that a thing? Southeastern Eastern?
Mike Chamberlin:Yeah. Because, I mean, you know, they're they're solid documentation showing that the the line that separates the eastern subspecies from what's believed to be the Osceola subspecies is somewhat arbitrary and was drawn on a map many years ago. And so to Phil's point, there's potential that we could really nail down because it's it was believed historically that there was a like a gradation zone where you had Osceolas that were hybridized with Easterns and but we don't really know that to be true. And so we will be able to nail that down. Amazing.
Mike Chamberlin:Mike, I'm
Mike Brasher:gonna throw it to you to make any final remarks. Thank our partners. Thank our hunters as we kinda close out and and tell people what they need to be on the lookout for.
Mike Chamberlin:Yeah. I would just thank you to the hunters that have participated. Thank you for your interest and your passion in the wild turkey, and and stay tuned to wildturkeydna.com and and our socials and go register. Go to the website and and register to participate. And if you're selected and you get those kits, please return the kits to us so that
Phil Lavretsky:we can Yep.
Mike Chamberlin:We can get the data and and move forward, and and we, you know, we thank you in advance for for that.
Mike Brasher:Understand that not every due to limitations on supplies and resources, not everyone that applies is gonna be able to get a kit, but you won't get a kit if you don't apply. That's one of the things that I can guarantee you. Man, people have been very understanding on the duck DNA side of things, and and I know they will be on the wild turkey DNA side as also.
Mike Chamberlin:And if you kill a bird with odd plumage
Mike Brasher:That's right.
Mike Chamberlin:Go reach out to us just like you did in 2025. We're we want to continue studying the origin of these odd odd plumage patterns, and we need more more samples to do that.
Mike Brasher:So the first seasons will be opening up, what, next month? Okay. And we will be the the registration that people can go online right now and apply. And once we make the first selections, we'll get those kits out to folks as soon as possible. And so with instructions and all that kind of good stuff.
Mike Brasher:Well, Katie, Mike, and Phil, it's been great to connect with you again on this. And I look forward to, from Ducks Unlimited's perspective, continuing to sort of play a role in helping facilitate some of this, especially the interaction with the hunters. That's always a fantastic thing. Hearing the stories that are being shared with you, the thank yous that y'all are receiving at the convention is just sort of another validation of the value of the vision that we all collectively had for this in terms of engaging hunters more deeply in the scientific process and collection of data. So it's been a fantastic thing to watch and look forward to continuing it.
Mike Brasher:So thank you all very much. Absolutely. A very special thanks to our guests on today's episode, Doctor. Mike Chamberlain, Doctor. Phil Loretsky, and Katie Tucker.
Mike Brasher:We thank them for everything that they're doing with Wild Turkey DNA. And thank you, the hunter and participants, for your support of this project as well. We thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for the awesome job that he does on all of these episodes and getting them out to you and to you, the listener. We thank you for your support of waterfowl, wetlands conservation, and in this case, wild turkey science and wild turkey conservation as well. Have a good one, y'all.
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