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Abstract

Birds are one of the most recognizable and diverse groups of organisms on earth. This group has played animportant role in many fields, including the development of methods in behavioral ecology and evolution-ary theory. The use of population genomics took off following the advent of high-throughput sequencingin various taxa. Several features of avian genomes make them particularly amenable for work in this field,including their nucleated red blood cells permitting easy DNA extraction and small, compact genomes. Wereview the latest findings in the population genomics of birds here, emphasizing questions related tobehavior, ecology, evolution, and conservation. Additionally, we include insights in trait mapping and theability to obtain accurate estimates of important summary statistics for conservation (e.g., genetic diversityand inbreeding). We highlight roadblocks that will need to be overcome in order to advance work on thepopulation genomics of birds and prospects for future work. Roadblocks include the assembly of morecontiguous reference genomes using long-reads and optical mapping. Prospects include the integration ofpopulation genomics with additional fields (e.g., landscape genetics, phylogeography, and genomicmapping) along with studies beyond genetic variants (e.g., epigenetics).