- My relationship to the natural world was largely fostered

through my grandparents who owned a farm in Idaho.

We would go there every summer and we were free to roam

and play in the forest and hang out.

But I still didn't necessarily think

I wanted to be a scientist.

It wasn't until I got to understand

the creative part of science,

that it wasn't just about memorizing,

like, facts in a text book.

That's what really made me realize,

oh wait, actually this is a creative process, and I love it.

My name is Kristen Ruegg.

I am an assistant professor at Colorado State University,

and I am the co-director of a project

called the Bird Genoscape Project.

(soft music)

The goal of the Bird Genoscape Project is

to track hundreds of the most critically threatened birds.

All kinds of birds are part of this project

from tiny songbirds, like the willow flycatcher,

to my favorite, the charismatic burrowing owl.

I think it's amazing that over half of the birds

that are in North America actually leave

during the winter months and go somewhere else

and spend the majority of the year actually not here.

Birds migrate south in the winter

in search of better weather and more food,

and they migrate back north in the spring

in search of better habitat for breeding.

The main mystery with birds is where do birds migrate?

The ability to track migratory birds has been

a huge challenge for centuries.

One of the challenges is there are tracking devices,

but they're usually not small enough

to be able to put on a migratory bird.

So our thought was, well, if we could develop a technology

that could use information within a single feather,

like information in the DNA of the bird

to track their migratory movements,

then we could get information from every bird

that comes through a monitoring station.

If I wanted to understand where my ancestors were from,

I might take a DNA sample from me

and send it off to a genetic ancestry service.

They would compare my DNA against this huge database

of DNA from many, many other people

and be able to identify that my most likely ancestry

is largely Norwegian.

In a sense, that's what we're doing

with the DNA found in a single bird feather.

It's like genetic ancestry mapping for birds.

So here we have an American robin,

one of our Genoscape species.

This robin, yes, I see you.

This robin migrates from the boreal forest

in Canada and parts of the US

and goes as far south in the winter as Mexico.

And we also collect the feathers, the tail feathers,

that we use for genetic analysis.

(uplifting music)

The reason why we collect these feathers

is because we can use the tip of the feather right here,

which contains a little bit of DNA

to tell you which migratory pathway this bird took

and where it winters and breeds.

So what you have displayed here

is the map for the Wilson's Warbler showing the location

of the six populations.

Each one goes to a different wintering area.

For example, the Rocky Mountain population heads

all the way down to El Salvador and Panama.

Using their DNA, we can follow their migratory journey.

All we need is DNA from the tip of a feather.

Now that the Bird Genoscape Project is helping us understand

where and how birds move throughout the year,

we can figure out the best ways

to help them survive in a changing world.

Uncovering the mysteries of bird migration

may be the key to protecting them.

(uplifting music)