Paternity testing has revealed who the top kākāpō dads are, as well as the success of the artificial insemination programme, in episode 22 of the Kākāpō Files.

Artificial insemination (AI) of kākāpō has succeeded for the first time in a decade, and the Kākāpō Recovery Team at the Department of Conservation is very happy with the results.

Paternity testing has revealed that five eggs were successfully fertilised with inseminated sperm from three males, although two eggs died as early embryos and one chick died at just a few days old.

There are two surviving AI chicks, one of which is fathered by Sinbad, a male containing rare Fiordland genes which contribute important genetic diversity to a threatened species that has low genetic diversity overall.

Paternity testing has also revealed that two young males are star performers in what has been a record-breaking breeding season: Komaru and Horton have each fathered ten chicks.

Seven months after the largest kākāpō breeding season on record got off to a racing start, we finally have an answer to an outstanding question: who some of the kākāpō dads are.

Many female kākāpō mate with two and even three males, and in these cases genetic testing has to be used to determine who has fathered the chicks. It is also necessary to use genetic testing to determine fatherhood in the case of females who were inseminated with donor sperm after they had mated naturally.

The paternity testing is carried out by Agresearch using a process called genotyping by sequencing, drawing on genetic markers developed for kākāpō by Professor Bruce Robertson at the University of Otago.

Artificial insemination results

The kākāpō team, with help from German experts from the University of Giesen, carried out 15 artificial inseminations on 13 different females, and succeeded with three females.

Nora was successfully inseminated with Sinbad's sperm and two of her three fertile eggs were fathered by him (her third egg was fathered by Tutuko in a natural mating). Nora-1-B unfortunately died a few days after hatching. Nora 3-B is still alive but he is currently being treated for an aspergillosis infection.

Cyndy was successfully fertilised with sperm from founder male Merv, but the two fertile eggs died when they were about eight days old.

Margaret-Maree has an AI male chick fathered by Stumpy.

More interesting AI results

As well as revealing who the father is in cases of multiple matings, paternity testing has revealed some unusual results.

Tumeke mated with both Te Atapo and Boss, and for the first time ever in a natural clutch the chicks have mixed parentage: one chick was fathered by Boss and three by Te Atapo…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details