Laura Duntsch: A multigenerational pedigree for a threatened bird of Aotearoa, the hihi

In my research, I am investigating inbreeding in a threatened bird, the hihi. I also analyse in how far inbreeding might affect hihi fitness (lifetime reproductive success). For the hihi on Tiritiri Matangi island, we have the rare opportunity to work with a complete, multigenerational pedigree in order to estimate relatedness between individuals and make predictions about individual inbreeding levels. The pedigree in the image was constructed using a pedigree-building package in the programming tool R. There are currently about 200 hihi on the island, but the pedigree tells us about more than 1000 individual hihi and their (in)breeding history.