Genetic sequence promises new window into beloved ‘camp robber’ Canada jay
Smart. Friendly. Loyal. Tough. All are words used to describe the Canada jay, a charismatic corvid that many would like to see designated the country’s official national bird.
Now there’s another adjective to add to the list: sequenced.
On Tuesday, a team of researchers at the Centre for Applied Genomics, based at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, announced they have produced a near-complete genome of the Canada jay (Perisoreus canadensis), also known as the gray jay and the whisky jack.
The result could shed light on the behaviour of a species that is well adapted to living in Canada year-round instead of flying south for the winter as many songbirds do. And it may offer clues to how the bird will fare as its boreal habitat transitions to a warming climate.
Permanent resident
The Canada jay is a non-migrating bird that resides in boreal forests and high-altitude woodlands.
It is found in every Canadian province and territory.
Canada jay
year-round
distribution
the globe and mail, Source: cornell university
Having access to the genome is “like having the picture that goes with a jigsaw puzzle,” said Theresa Burg, a molecular ecologist at the University of Lethbridge. By using the genome as a reference, it is possible to understand the nature of genetic diversity across the species.
But not all genomes are equal, said Si Lok, the genomicist who led the sequencing work at SickKids. Reference genomes that seek to be as complete and error-free as possible are the costliest and most time-consuming to build.
In the case of the Canada jay, Dr. Lok said, “We wanted to get a near-perfect assembly.”
The work is part of a larger effort conducted with other centres called the Canadian BioGenome Project that aims to capture the extent of the country’s biodiversity at the molecular level.
Other species that the Toronto team has sequenced for the project include the beaver, wolverine and muskox.
While the Canada jay may be less familiar than those other species, there is an active effort to change this and to elevate the jay to the status of Canada’s national bird.
A bill to that effect is currently before committee in the Senate and it has received support from a number of conservation groups, including Birds Canada and the Canadian Wildlife Federation.
For now, Canada does not have an official bird. In 2016, Canadian Geographic magazine ran a competition to find a candidate and chose the Canada jay from among the finalists. Advocates for the species say it makes an ideal representative of the country, in part because it lives in Canada year-round.
Some other popular choices, such as the common loon, spend much of the year in the United States. In contrast, the hardy Canada jay actually nests in late winter.
“They sit on their eggs sometimes at -30 degrees, covered in snow,” said David Bird, an emeritus professor of wildlife biology at McGill University who has led the charge to designate the jay since 2010.
The species is also known for its impressive spatial memory, for hiding its food under bark and lichen, and for complicated social behaviours likely driven by limited resources.
Those who adore the bird are often taken with its cheeky personality. The jay’s status as a friendly “camp robber” that pilfers scraps of food dates back to the time of the fur trade. The nickname “whisky jack” is an Anglicized version of an Indigenous name for the bird.
Canada’s bird watchers have a front row seat to climate change
The first scientific description of the species appeared in 1760. It’s been called the Canada jay since at least 1831. It was only in 1947 that the American Ornithological Society changed the name of the bird to “gray jay” when it sought to standardize how it is identified.
More recently, Dan Strickland, a long-time expert on the species and a retired chief naturalist at Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, made the case that the original reason for calling it the gray jay was no longer valid because of subsequent changes to bird-naming protocols.
The Chicago-based society agreed, and in 2018, the bird’s common name officially reverted to “Canada jay.”
The following year, the centre at SickKids obtained purified DNA from a single female specimen of a Canada jay captured – as it happens – by Mr. Strickland.
(A female specimen was needed to sequence the complete genome because, unlike mammals, female birds carry two different sex chromosomes rather than two of the same.)
Dr. Lok said the sequencing work was done in three phases over the next several years with each iteration taking advantage of new leaps in genomics technology.
The work is challenging because the DNA consist of fragments that must be arranged in order to understand where different genes are located along the sequence and how they relate to one another.
The longer and fewer the fragments, the more reliable the end product. Dr. Lok said his first attempt to construct the genome was built up from 454 pieces, the latest from 198. He is now working on a fourth version that could consist of just 40 fragments.
The project also includes sequencing the Canada jay’s southern cousin, the blue jay, so that the two species can be directly compared.
This is of interest to scientists because while Canada jays are specialists adapted to the boreal forest, blue jays are generalists that can manage in a broader range of environments. It is the blue jays that stand to gain from climate change.
The Toronto team was able to check their reference genome against blood samples from other Canada jays provided by Dr. Burg’s lab. These demonstrate the high degree of genetic variation within the species, Dr. Lok said.
Ryan Norris, a professor at the University of Guelph who studies Canada jays in Algonquin Park where the species is in decline, said the genome could be useful for tracking the loss of genetic diversity in a location where the jay’s adaptations to a cold climate are no longer a winning strategy.
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