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ENVIRONMENT

UGA study finds female wild turkeys are more dominant than males

Erica Van Buren

Augusta Chronicle

Feb. 4, 2026, 4:03 a.m. ET

 

• A University of Georgia study found that eastern wild turkey offspring sex ratios are skewed towards females.
• Researchers analyzed DNA from eggshell membranes left in nests to determine the sex and paternity of hatched chicks.
• The study initially expected to find a male-biased sex ratio but discovered the opposite was true in most locations.

Female eastern wild turkeys are the more dominant species, according to a recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Georgia.

Erin Ulrey, a postdoctoral researcher at UGA, said the research started in 2020, dedicated to looking at how wild turkeys function in non-hunted environments.

“We’ve focused on females looking at what goes on during the reproductive season, looking at the maternity and paternity of wild turkey nests (and) trying to understand in these hatch clutches how many fathers are responsible for siring offspring, and whether any type of nest parasitism is going on," said Ulrey.

And as part of that, researchers were able to determine the genotypes of those offspring, said Ulrey.

 

“And so something that was really interesting was we started noticing that there were quite a few females," she said. "That's not really what we expected. From there, we investigated more about what might be influencing these female offspring numbers.”

Researchers evaluated offspring sex ratios of eastern wild turkeys across the Southeast by molecular determination of sex from eggshell membranes of hatched clutches, according to the research study published in the Journal of Avian Biology. 

Researchers sexed 724 offspring from 83 nests using molecular markers and identified 278 males and 446 females, with a sex ratio of 38% male.

“We started this work focused on looking at relatedness within clutches of wild turkeys,” said Michael Chamberlain, National Wild Turkey Federation distinguished professor at UGA. “The idea was to figure out if there were instances of multi paternity, meaning more than one male fertilizes eggs within a single clutch.”

 

Chamberlain said they also evaluated sex ratios within clutches, because there's really only been a single study that ever attempted to look at that question.

“We thought that we would see a male bias in sex ratios,” said Chamberlain. “Interestingly enough, we didn't see that. What we found was that the sex ratio was skewed towards females, which was admittedly surprising, except on a single study site where hunting wasn't occurring.

“And on that site, we found that it was essentially a 50-50 sex ratio, which was a really interesting and unexpected result. That's the science sometimes. You start studying a question, you have a hypothesis, and you end up finding the reverse of what you thought you'd find.”

 

Reading the eggshells

When the young chicks hatch and leave the nest with the female, the eggshells are left behind, said Chamberlain. The membranes with those eggshells contain DNA from the young turkey as well as its mother and father.

Chamberlain said ecosystem loss has had a negative impact on wild turkeys.

“The declines are largely driven by declines in habitat,” he said. “Georgia is just exploding. So we're seeing a lot of habitat loss. That is widely believed to be the primary driver of these declines. It's true that wild turkeys are hunted, but I don't think there's anyone that would claim that hunting is actually driving these declines. That's not the reality.”

 

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Tracking the turkeys

The wild turkeys were captured and fitted with backpack-sized GPS transmitters, said Chamberlain.

The data helps scientists calculate how successful they are at nesting, their survival rates, and where they're locating their nests.

“We're trying to figure out how to manage the landscape in a way where turkeys are sustainable decades from now," he said.

This reporting content is supported by a partnership with several funders and Journalism Funding Partners.

Erica Van Buren is the climate change reporter for The Augusta Chronicle, part of the USA TODAY Network. Connect with her atEVan...@usatodayco.com or on X: @EricaVanBuren32.