About the Authors

Christopher M. Seabury

cseabury@cvm.tamu.edu (CMS); itizard@cvm.tamu.edu (IRT)

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Scot E. Dowd

Affiliation Molecular Research LP, Shallowater, Texas, United States of America

Paul M. Seabury

Affiliation ElanTech, Inc., Greenbelt, Maryland, United States of America

Terje Raudsepp

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Donald J. Brightsmith

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Poul Liboriussen

Affiliation CLC bio, Finlandsgade, Katrinebjerg, Denmark

Yvette Halley

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Colleen A. Fisher

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Elaine Owens

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Ganesh Viswanathan

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Ian R. Tizard

cseabury@cvm.tamu.edu (CMS); itizard@cvm.tamu.edu (IRT)

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have the following competing interests to declare. SED runs a sequencing service center and was compensated for services, PMS is the brother of CMS and is also an unpaid collaborator and employee of ElanTech Inc. ElanTech Inc allows PMS to collaborate and participate in peer-reviewed publications. PL is also an unpaid collaborator of Dr. Seabury, who designed and validated the original CLC de novo assembler. PL is a paid employee of CLC Bio, but owns no stock in CLC Bio. Beyond the collaborative relationships stated here, the authors have no employment, consultancy, patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: CMS. Performed the experiments: CMS SED TR. Analyzed the data: CMS SED TR PMS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PL IRT DJB. Wrote the paper: CMS. Assembled the genome: CMS. Performed comparative alignment: CMS. Performed in silico annotation: CMS SED. Parsed and scripted data: PMS CMS SED. Managed Data: CMS PMS CAF YH GV. Performed quality control analyses: CMS PMS CAF YH GV. Performed Cytogenetics: TR. Performed analysis of divergence and statistics: CMS. Engineered and validated the original de novo assembler: PL. Jointly conceived genome sequencing for the scarlet macaw: CMS DJB IRT. Provided comments and suggestions for the manuscript: SED PMS TR DJB PL YH CAF EO GV IRT. Performed feather pulp cell culture: EO.