India, Oct. 24 -- A herd of bison grazing on an American prairie can make it easy to overlook the fact that the species was once brought to the brink of extinction. As a result of commercial hunting and other pressures exerted by humans, the huge herds of bison living in North America were reduced to just a few members. The question then arises whether, along with the population drop, the genetic diversity of American bison was lost as well.

A 2026 study published in Science offers a qualified answer. Researchers, including scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, analyzed 115 ancient and 45 modern bison genomes spanning roughly 20,000 years, plus 52 previously published modern genomes. The findings suggest that the collap...