No island hopping for Hawaiian petrels

Burg, Theresa M.; Martin, A B

doi:10.1038/hdy.2012.5

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Although the forest thrush is physically capable of flying to cross this isthmus, the urbanized area may well represent a strong barrier to gene flow. It is now becoming clear that the dispersal potential may be a poor predictor of the realized gene flow in various taxa, even in the absence of obvious physical barrier to dispersal (for example, Bergek and Björklund, 2009;Burg and Martin, 2012;Bertrand et al, 2014). Recent work on tropical birds has shown a strong inhibition for crossing unsuitable habitats (roads, linear clearings, open field for forest species), even over very short distances (Van Houtan et al, 2007;Moore et al, 2008, Burney andBrumfield, 2009;Laurance et al, 2009).…”

Section: Divergence Within a Small Islandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphology and genetics reveal an intriguing pattern of differentiation at a very small geographic scale in a bird species, the forest thrush Turdus lherminieri

et al. 2014

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Mobile organisms are expected to show population differentiation only over fairly large geographical distances. However, there is growing evidence of discrepancy between dispersal potential and realized gene flow. Here we report an intriguing pattern of differentiation at a very small spatial scale in the forest thrush (Turdus lherminieri), a bird species endemic to the Lesser Antilles. Analysis of 331 individuals from 17 sampling sites distributed over three islands revealed a clear morphological and genetic differentiation between these islands isolated by 40-50 km. More surprisingly, we found that the phenotypic divergence between the two geographic zones of the island of Guadeloupe was associated with a very strong genetic differentiation (F st from 0.073-0.153), making this pattern a remarkable case in birds given the very small spatial scale considered. Molecular data (mitochondrial control region sequences and microsatellite genotypes) suggest that this strong differentiation could have occurred in situ, although alternative hypotheses cannot be fully discarded. This study suggests that the ongoing habitat fragmentation, especially in tropical forests, may have a deeper impact than previously thought on avian populations.

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